The UK economy grew by a better than expected pace in the fourth quarter of last year. The recently released data from the Office for National Statistics showed that the UK economy grew by 0.4% in the quarter ended December 2009.

The economic growth was reported faster than expected while the economists were estimating a growth of 0.3% for the period. The Office for National Statistics said that the better than expected economic growth was mainly attributable to higher output from business services, construction and agriculture.

This upward revision of the economic growth comes after the ONS revised its growth estimate for the quarter to 0.3% in February from an earlier estimate of 0.1%. The recent economic growth also showed that the UK economy is emerging from an 18 month recession.

ONS said that public spending and the inventory cycle played a major role in the growth in the fourth quarter of last year. ONS also said that both of these are not supposed to be to be supportive for much longer.

The data from ONS showed that GDP contracted by 1.9% during the full year 2009, while it was reported up by 0.5% in the previous year. The GDP was recorded down by 3.1% in the fourth quarter, comparing to the same quarter of the last year.