Reading Time | < 1 min 12th March 2012

Recession could be ending

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The UK economy may at last be emerging from the recession, a leading think tank has suggested.

Figures from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) indicated that the economy expanded by 0.1 per cent in May after it grew by 0.2 per cent in the previous month.

According to the NIESR, both industry and the services sector had made a contribution to the growth.

Martin Weale, a director at the NIESR, said: “The monthly figures are inevitably erratic, but the picture is coherent with the broader picture of stabilisation which has emerged since we first suggested last month that output had stopped falling.”

The rate of expansion may put the economy on track for a sustained level of growth during the second quarter of the year. If so, recovery would be six months ahead of the government’s own forecasts.