Annual figures released today by Co-operatives UK, the trade body for co-operative businesses, showed that the UK's co-operative economy has outperformed the UK economy for the fourth consecutive year, with a growth of 1.5% in 2011 compared with 0.7% in the UK economy, twice the rate of the UK economy.
While the real level of GDP in the UK in 2011 is 1.7% lower than in 2008, the turnover of the co-operative sector has grown by 19.5% over the same period.
The report, entitled 'The co-operative economy 2012 - alternatives to austerity' details how a member-owned economy with a turnover of £35.6bn, has experienced an 8.9% rise in the number of co-operative enterprises from 5,450 in 2010 to 5,933 in 2011 and a 5.5% rise in the number of memberships from 12.8m in 2010 to 13.5m in 2011.
