The Northern Ireland economy ended 2023 in decline, official figures show.
Official statistics body Nisra said while the north’s economy grew by 0.3% last year, a slowdown in the public and services sector saw output contract by 0.2% in the final quarter.
Northern Ireland’s public sector shrank by 0.8% between the third and fourth quarters, 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 entered 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 to 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.
But it does mean that Northern Ireland’s economy was still in decline during two quarters in 2023.
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.
The research body said the decline recorded in the public and services sectors was partially offset by improvements in the production and agriculture sectors.
