LONDON, Feb 25 (Reuters) - Britain's economy shrank by an unrevised 1.5 percent in the last three months of 2008, the sharpest drop since 1980, and third-quarter figures were revised down, official data showed on Wednesday.
The Office for National Statistics said fourth-quarter GDP shrank by 1.9 percent on the year, revised down from the initial -1.8 percent reading and in line with analysts' forecasts.
Analysts had also forecast a slight downward revision for the fourth-quarter quarterly rate but that was left unrevised.
However, third quarter figures were revised down to show a 0.7 percent drop on the quarter and a 0.2 percent rise on the year, compared with earlier estimates of a fall of 0.6 percent on the quarter and a 0.3 percent annual rise.
The figures confirm that Britain entered a steep recession at the end of last year and are unlikely to alter expectations that the Bank of England will take further steps to ease monetary conditions.
With interest rates nearing zero, the BoE is moving towards buying assets with newly-created money to try and boost demand.
While manufacturing and production output figures were revised down sharply in the second reading of fourth quarter GDP, figures for the more dominant services sector were revised up slightly. (UK Economics Desk, uk.economics@reuters.com, Tel: 44 207 542 5109))