Professor John McHale:

The report breaks apart past growth and past forecasting errors to get a better understanding of why it got it wrong and why there is a pattern of continual downward revisions. It was very much on the domestic demand side. If anything the net export side tends to be underestimated. Last year, we saw real signs of stabilisation in domestic demand but these are tentative and we will not know until well into this year whether stabilisation in domestic demand is really taking place.