The South West economy grew during the first quarter of 2019, new figures show.
Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed that, in the three months to March 2019, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the region went up by 0.7 per cent.
That follows a positive growth of 0.3 per cent in the last quarter of 2018.
The economic increase has been driven by growth in water supply and sewerage, mining and quarrying, public administration and defence, and manufacturing.
Water supply and sewerage grew by 10.2 per cent and made the largest positive contribution to growth in the South West at 0.2 percentage points.
Mining and quarrying was up by 3.9 per cent while the public administration and defence sector grew by 2.2 per cent, and manufacturing by 2.0 per cent.
Water supply and sewerage, and administration and defence made the largest positive contribution to growth in the South West at 0.2 percentage points and 0.1 per cent respectively.
But there was bad news for the agricultural and education industries, which saw a fall of 6.8 and 5.7 per cent respectively.
Across the UK as a whole, GDP grew by 0.6 per cent between the last quarter of 2018 and the first quarter of 2019.
That follows quarter-on-quarter growth of 0.3 per cent the last time the figures were published.
All of the UK’s constituent countries had positive quarter-to-quarter growth, apart from Wales.
The strong growth seen in the UK was largely driven by the production sector.
This was consistent with reports at the time of manufacturing businesses increasing activity ahead of the UK’s originally intended departure date from the European Union.
