Today (2nd June 2016) we release our latest series of nowcasts of the Scottish economy; these are our final estimate of growth in 2016 Q1 and our new estimate for 2016 Q2 [1].

Headlines:

2016 Q1 GDP growth in Scotland, at an annualised rate, is nowcast to be 1.01%, the quarterly change is nowcast to be 0.28%

2016 Q2 GDP growth in Scotland, at an annualised rate, is nowcast to be 1.44%, the quarterly change is nowcast to be 0.36%

These nowcasts represent a continued downward revision for 2016 Q1 and Q2.

Official estimates for Q1 2016 are due to be released next month, and will be incorporated into our next nowcast release.

We will be commenting more in the coming month on the current state of the Scottish economy, but for now we simply reiterate our concern that the Scottish economy is struggling, both in relative (to the UK) and absolute terms. Action to address this current malaise is urgently required.

For details of how the data mentioned above, and other “live” data on Scottish economic activity are used to construct our “nowcasts”, see the Methodology page.

[1] Note as explained in the methodological paper (here), we nowcast gross value added (GVA) rather than gross domestic product (GDP), because this is the regional equivalent of GDP which is produced, but we refer here to GDP for intuitive ease.