US fourth quarter growth revised down to 5.6pc

WASHINGTON: The US economy grew at a slower pace than expected in the final quarter of 2009 as consumer and business spending slackened amid a fragile recovery from recession, the government said Friday.

The world’s largest economy grew by 5.6 per cent in the October-December period, the Commerce Department said, revising downward an earlier estimate of 5.9 per cent growth in gross domestic product, a key economic benchmark.

The growth estimate cutback came from downward revisions to business investment, inventories, and consumer spending, the department said. But the new reading still marked the most robust growth in six years.

Analysts had expected the world’s largest economy to grow at 5.9 per cent in the final quarter from 2.2 per cent in the third quarter. The US economy started growing only in the second half of last year after plunging into a brutal recession in December 2007 triggered by a home mortgage meltdown that sparked a global financial crisis.