Britain service sector grows in January

Britain's dominant service sector grew 0.3 percent in January this year, outpacing the manufacturing and construction sector, figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed on Thursday. The ONS figures also showed that output of service sector rose 0.8 percent compared with a year earlier, posing the fastest growth in five months. "The largest contributions came from business services and finance, which increased by 0.8 percent, and government and other services, which increased by 0.9 percent," said the ONS. Service sector consisting of hotels and restaurants, finance and business services, transport, storage and communications, accounts for 77 percent of British gross domestic product (GDP), and is hence considered the main driver of the economy, which contracted by 0.3 percent in the last quarter of 2012. The rise in the service sector output has eased some worries that the economy may fall back to recession in the first three months of this year. However, the latest official data show that services output was down 0.2 percent in the three months ending January, compared with the three months ending in October when the London Olympics helped the economy.