U.S. economic growth was revised upward to an annual rate of 1.7 percent in the second quarter of this year, compared to the initially estimated pace of 1.6 percent, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.
Real gross domestic product (GDP), the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States, rose 3.7 percent in the first quarter.
The GDP estimate released on Thursday is based on more complete source data than were available for the second estimate issued last month, said the department in a statement.
The department attributed the increase in real GDP in the second quarter to positive contributions from personal consumption expenditures, nonresidential fixed investment, exports, private inventory investment, federal government spending, and residential fixed investment.
Final sales of computers added 0.03 percentage point to the second-quarter change in real GDP after adding 0.1 percentage point to the first-quarter change. Motor vehicle output subtracted 0.06 percentage point from the second-quarter change in real GDP after adding 0.74 percentage point to the first-quarter change, according to the statement.
"Real personal consumption expenditures increased 2.2 percent in the second quarter, compared with an increase of 1.9 percent in the first," said the department.
U.S. real exports of goods and services gained 9.1 percent in the second quarter, compared with a gain of 11.4 percent in the first quarter. But real imports of goods and services jumped 33.5 percent, compared with an increase of 11.2 percent in the first quarter.
Economists hold that the U.S. economy will continue with the slugging recovery pace and it was difficult to reduce the stubbornly high unemployment rate in the near term./.