Disappointing, yes surprising, no

There ought to have been no surprise — much less the kind of disappointment demonstrated by tanking stock markets — over the release on Friday of GDP growth data for the last quarter of 2012-13 (January-March 2013). According to the Central Statistics Office, the economy grew by 4.8 per cent in the last quarter and by just 5 per cent last year. Both figures were widely anticipated. In fact, as far back as February, the CSO had pegged the growth rate for 2012-13 at 5 per cent based on an advance estimate of national income.

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