UK trade deficit narrows in March Although the monthly figures tend to be volatile, the latest data still leaves the possibility that net trade was again a drag on economic growth in the first three months of 2013, when Britain's gross domestic product rose 0.3pc. British goods exports rose 5pc in March from February but fell 1.2pc in the first three months of the year compared with the previous quarter. In coming months, British exports may increasingly benefit from a sharp weakening in the pound earlier this year. In March sterling hit a 20-month low against a trade-weighted basket of currencies. A separate official release showed on Friday that construction output fell 2.4pc in the first quarter, a modest upward revision of the 2.5pc plunge the ONS pencilled in in its first estimate of GDP. The revision will have no impact on estimates of first-quarter economic growth, the ONS said. Volume of construction output is now at its lowest level since the last quarter of 1994, it added. Weak construction activity was the main reason the economy contracted in three quarters last year and it also weighed on GDP early this year.