NI Economy: Service sector grows with rise in retail sales

Retail sales grew by 2.2% over the quarter but were still 2.3% lower than the same period in 2021

Northern Ireland's services sector gained momentum in the final quarter of 2022 with retail sales showing their strongest quarterly growth since the start of 2021.

However, the official figures suggest the manufacturing sector saw a small fall in output.

The services sector is the dominant part of the NI economy.

Its output expanded by 1% compared to the previous quarter and by 1.8% over the year.

The business services and finance subsector saw output grow by 1% over the quarter to reach a record high.

It covers industries like IT, accountancy and law.

Retail sales grew by 2.2% over the quarter but were still 2.3% lower than the same period in 2021.

The NI retail sector has still not fully recovered since the pandemic and has shown a decline in annual growth in 10 of the last 12 quarters.

It was a mixed picture for manufacturing leading to overall output to fall by 0.1% over the quarter but grow by 0.9% over the year.

The chemicals and pharma subsector saw a continuing fall in output which may reflect the fact that NI was a major source of covid test kits during the pandemic.

Output was down by by 6.3% over the quarter and 36.7% over the year.

'Robust growth'

Meanwhile the two largest manufacturing subsectors, engineering and food saw robust growth.

The food sector saw output grow by 1.5% over the quarter and 8.3% over the year.

Engineering output was up by 3.7% over the quarter and nearly 20% over the year.

Northern Ireland's economy fell into a technical recession in the third quarter of 2022 and its not yet clear if these figures will represent a return to growth for the economy as a whole.