The British economy grew at its fastest annual pace in two years in the third quarter of 2006, official, data showed today.
The Office for National Statistics said GDP rose 0.7 per cent in the July-September period, unrevised from the previous estimate and the same rate as in the second quarter.
But it raised its estimate of annual growth to 2.9 per cent from 2.7 per cent - the fastest pace since the third quarter of 2004 - and making it almost certain that finance minister Gordon Brown's new full-year forecast of 2.75 per cent will be met.
Markets paid little attention, but analysts said the upward revision may raise concern about diminishing spare capacity in the economy.
All nine members of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee voted to leave interest rates at a five-year high of 5 per cent earlier this month, but a few appeared keen to raise borrowing costs again because of concern about rising inflationary pressures.
Separately, the ONS released third quarter data on the balance of payments. The current account recorded a deficit of £9.429 billion after a £8.264 billion gap in the second quarter. This was equivalent to 2.9 per cent of GDP.