UK manufacturing shrank by 0.2% in the fourth quarter
UK economic activity shrank by 0.2% in the last three months of last year according to official figures.
It marks a sharp drop in economic activity from the third quarter of 2011, when gross domestic product (gdp) expanded by 0.6%.
The figures, from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), are a preliminary estimate, which could be revised either up or down by 0.2%.
The ONS figures also show that the economy grew by 0.9% during 2011.
The gain for the year is in line with official targets.
The quarterly fall in gdp is the first since the last three months of 2010, when freezing weather was blamed for a 0.5% drop.
The new figure was worse than had been feared, as most economists had pencilled in a 0.1% fall in activity.
The contraction was driven by a 0.9% fall in manufacturing, a 4.1% drop in electricity and gas production as the warm weather caused people to turn down heating, and a 0.5% fall in construction sector.
Meanwhile, the services sector, which accounts for two thirds of the economy, ground to a halt.
November's public sector strikes, which took place in the fourth quarter period, losing nearly a million working days, may also have held the economy back.
The new figures come a day after the governor of the Bank of England, Sir Mervyn King, said that the UK faces an arduous path to economic recovery.
On Tuesday the International Monetary Fund also cut the growth forecast for the UK economy in 2012 to 0.6% from 1.6%.
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