91Èȱ¬

The Northern Ireland economy grew by an estimated 0.8% in the final quarter of 2021, official figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggest.

That is lower than the average UK economy growth rate of 1%.

The figures suggest six regions grew at a rate equal to or higher than the UK average, with six below.

The highest estimated growth was 1.2% for the south west of England, the lowest was 0.7% for the north east of England.

The figures from the ONS also suggest that Northern Ireland has had one of the strongest regional economic bounce backs from the pandemic.

The ONS estimates that in the last quarter of 2021 Northern Ireland's economic output had almost returned to its 2019 level with only London doing better.

These are experimental statistics that need to to be treated with some caution as they are based on economic modelling.

The model is based on estimated historical relationships between regional growth and UK growth, estimated historical relationships within and between regions and estimated historical relationships between macroeconomic variables, like oil prices, and regional growth.

The ONS says that because the model relies on estimated historical relationships, regional economic "shocks" will not be detected.

That could mean that, for example, the model might not pick up economic changes flowing from Brexit and the Northern Ireland Protocol.

There is other evidence to suggest that Northern Ireland has had a reasonably strong economic bounce back from the pandemic.

Separate data from the NI Statistics & Research Agency (Nisra) suggests that the Northern Ireland economy grew by 1.5% in the third quarter of 2021, substantially higher than the ONS estimate of 0.9% for that quarter.

The Nisra figure also suggests that in the third quarter of 2021 the Northern Ireland economy was an estimated 3% bigger than it was before the onset of the pandemic.