U.S. GDP Revised Up to 1.4%

The U.S. economy grew at a faster rate in the fourth quarter than the government reported a month ago, the Commerce Department said Friday.

Commerce revised its report on U.S. gross domestic product upward to 1.4% from the 0.7% it had originally reported.

The improvement in GDP during the final quarter of 2002 was prompted by improved reports on consumer and business spending and companies adding to inventories at a quicker rate than previously thought.

The GDP report measures all the goods and services produced in the United States

Commerce said that real final sales, which exclude inventories, rose 1.2% in the latest revision. In the report the previous month, real sales rose 1.3%. Economists view real sales as measure of the strength of underlying demand, Bloomberg reported.

Several reports on the housing market and the manufacturing sector release so far in 2003 indicate a moderate economic expansion, analysts told Bloomberg.

Economists had predicted that GDP would be revised up to a1% rate of growth, Bloomberg said.

For all of 2002, the economy grew 2.4%, Commerce said.