The Northern Ireland economy ended 2023 in decline, official figures show.
Official statistics body Nisra said a slowdown in the public and services sector saw output contract by 0.2% in the final quarter of last year.
But the economic output was still 0.3% up over the year.
Northern Ireland’s public sector shrank by 0.8% in the final quarter of 2023, while the services sector, which accounts for the greater part of the economy, contracted by 0.3%.
The latest Northern Ireland Composite Economic Index (NICEI) was published on Thursday as revised figures from the Office for National Statistics in London confirmed the UK did enter a technical recession in the final six months of 2023.
UK gross domestic product (GDP) shrank by 0.1% in the third quarter and by a further 0.3% in the September to December period.
The NICEI is considered the closest thing Nisra has for measuring GDP in Northern Ireland.
It suggests that unlike UK GDP, output in the north’s economy did not contract during the third quarter of last year.
Economic surveys, such as Ulster Bank’s purchasing managers’ index, suggests the private sector has largely started 2024 in growth mode.
Nisra said the Northern Ireland economy ended 2023 with output 5.6% above the final quarter of 2019, i.e. before the Covid-19 pandemic.
It said the decline recorded in the public and services sectors was partially offset by improvements in the production and agriculture sectors, which effectively left the private sector unchanged in Q4 2023.
The production sector, which includes manufacturing, grew by 0.4% in the final quarter of 2023, while output in agriculture was up by 7.4% over the same period.
Although production output was down over the year, Nisra said there had been “a marked growth” in the sector’s output at the end of 2023 after four consecutive quarters of decline.
The statistics body said: “Challenging conditions remain for households and businesses who are adjusting to the upward shift in price levels for goods and services and the higher interest rate environment.”
‘Other work’
Meanwhile, a separate report published by Nisra on Thursday pointed to some signs of recovery in the north’s construction sector towards the end of last year.
The total volume of construction output increased by 0.8% in the final three months of 2023, largely driven by an uptake in infrastructure (+1.6%) and ‘other work’ (+2%).
According to Nisra, ‘other work’ accounted for 38% of all construction output in Q4 2023, making it the largest sub-sector.
It’s understood ‘other work’ includes projects such as factories, warehouses, education, health, hotels and agriculture.
But Nisra’s latest report offers a grim picture for the state of house building in Northern Ireland.
The housing sub-sector contracted by 6.6% in the final quarter of 2023, leaving it 12.9% down over the year.
