Regional gross domestic product: January to March 2021

Gross domestic product (GDP) measures the value of goods and services produced in the UK. It estimates the size of and growth in the economy.

These are experimental statistics and should be treated with caution. The data can be volatile, and quarterly movements should normally be considered alongside the long-term trend.

Change over the quarter

• GDP in Wales decreased by 1.7% in quarter 1 (January to March) 2021 compared with the previous quarter (October to December 2020). This follows growth in quarter 4, 2020 as the economy saw some recovery from the large falls in quarter 2 2020 at the start of the pandemic.
• All four countries in the UK saw a decrease with the largest in Wales.
• Accommodation and food service activities experienced the largest decrease in quarter 1 2021 (down 16.2%). Activities of households as employers, undifferentiated goods and services experienced the largest increase (up 7.4%).

Note

The Office for National Statistics have paused updating the time series between Quarter 1 2012 and Quarter 3 2020 to focus on developing methods to improve data quality and minimise the frequency of revisions.

As a result, data within this release have been updated to include Quarter 1 (January to March) 2021 but do not include any revisions to earlier data periods, including alignment to recently published Annual Regional Accounts or Quarterly National Accounts. As such, the commentary has been limited to quarter-on-quarter changes from Quarter 4 2020 to Quarter 1 2021.