Back with the UK economy, and it is clear not everyone is impressed with the progress being claimed by the government. Natalie Bennett, leader of the Green Party of England and Wales said:

It's clear that this government has failed to reform our fraud-ridden, shaky financial sector, and has not, as it promised in 2010, made any progress on rebalancing our economy.

Chancellor George Osborne has made it even harder for small businesses to compete against multinationals by cutting the corporate tax rate, and presided over a collapse in business investment, particularly in the hugely promising 'green sector', which has suffered hugely from the government's inept vacillating on energy policy.

Over to Greece where it has been officially confirmed that fresh bailout funds will not be disbursed until March (at the earliest). Helena Smith reports from Athens:

And finally it is official. Highlighting just how rocky relations are with the organisations that have kept debt-stricken Greece afloat since May 2010, the finance minister Yannis Stournaras announced further disbursements of aid would have to wait until March. With creditors yet to complete their latest review of the economy – four months after it began – Stournaras felt fit to say at the end of the eurogroup meeting Monday that negotiations, it was now hoped, would be wrapped by the time eurozone finance ministers next met on February 17.

“We’re aiming for an agreement before [then] while approval of the instalment will happen at the March euro group,” said the economics professor insisting that the EU, ECB and IMF had “yet to take into account” Greece’s unexpectedly good fiscal results in 2013. “And that’s so important, it overshadows everything.”

Reinforcing the argument that crisis-plagued Athens now had a stronger hand to play, a senior financial ministry official citing latest revenue and spending figures, leaked today that Greece’s primary budget surplus was likely to exceed €1bn – well over the € 830m already seen as a major achievement, that Stournaras and others have publicly acknowledged so far.

But there is no denying that the obstacles remain. Despite the country’s tremendous fiscal consolidation – a record in the history of the EU – senior EU mandarins, from the euro group president Jeroen Dijsselbloem, to the monetary affairs commissioner Olli Rehn, and Wolfgang Schauble, the German finance minister, are all at pains to emphasise that there is still “a great deal to be done” (even if Schauble has increasingly adopted a sweet tone when he speaks about matters Greek).

And the fact is that concord is in short supply.

The sustainability of Greece’s debt load, which at 120% of GDP at the start of the crisis now stands at 176% and is unanimously accepted as the basis for any real economic revival, remains an open question, as do the fiscal shortfalls that will be faced by the eurozone’s weakest member in 2014 and 2015. Under such circumstances it is easy to see why prime minister Antonis Samaras’ shaky coalition government may, in fact, be trying to keep the troika at bay – at least until the euro elections in May.

One business which is not moving higher is Apple.

The iPad and iPhone maker's shares have slumped more than 8% to $504 after it reported a disappointing outlook for second quarter sales. And despite the company selling a record 51m iPhones in three months to the end of December, this fell short of the 55m expected by analysts.

More than a dozen brokers cut their price targets for Apple, amid concerns the market had become saturated and it would need a cheaper iPhone to see off low-cost rivals. Its next set of products will need to be innovative for it to regain its cutting edge reputation.

More data from the US and it's a little mixed.

The Richmond Federal Reserve's manufacturing index for January came in at 12 compared to expectations of a level of 13.

But the January consumer confidence index hit 80.7, much better than the forecast 78.1. December's figure however was revised down from 78.1 to 77.5.

Following the weak durable goods numbers this will give the Federal Reserve something to think about at its two day meeting starting today - the last one Ben Bernanke will chair. The Fed's decision on its QE programme will be announced tomorrow evening, and some believe it could trim its bond buying programme again following the $10bn cut to $75bn last month. Mads Koefoed, head of macro strategy at Saxo Bank said:

The US economy acceleration out of 2013, and despite a weak December employment report, I expect [the Fed] to sway in favour of more tapering at its January meeting. Specifically, another $10bn in QE3 tapering will be announced and divided equally between mortgage-backed securities and treasuries.

Meanwhile Wall Street has recovered after its recent falls, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average currently up around 86 points or 0.5% in early trading.

Switching to the US briefly, a slab of bad American economic news just hit the wires.

Orders for durable goods slumped by 4.3% in December -- the biggest monthly fall since last July. Economists had expected that orders grew by 1.8% .

December was a grim month weather-wise in the US (ice storms gripped the country, and has already been blamed for recent poor employment data). So perhaps it's all the snow's fault...

Looking through the reaction to the UK GDP, Ian Brinkley, chief economist at The Work Foundation, makes an important point -- that Britain still has a productivity problem.

“The latest preliminary GDP figures confirm a firmly based, if not spectacular, recovery is underway. However, with employment growing faster than GDP the productivity figures for the final quarter of 2013 are likely to be very poor.

 Preliminary GDP figures in recoveries are often revised upwards, so the underlying position may be a bit better than we think. Either way, however, we have a jobs rich and productivity poor recovery and that may not be sustainable over the medium term.”

Just spotted Andrew Sparrow is covering the key points at Treasury Questions, here.

Sticking with parliament, Ed Balls (amid much noise from the Conservative benches) is trying to ask about the economy. 

Speaker Bercow shushes them,  'punning' about how in tennis you get new balls after seven games (?) 

Balls asks why Osborne won't admit that living standards aren't going up.

Osborne replies that Balls had claimed that a recovery couldn't happen under the government's plan, that the deficit would go up, that we'd never get growth without extra government spending.

On the other side of the house they need new crystal balls, Osborne concludes.

Very good, Chancellor, a joke about my name, responds the shadow chancellor.

They then clash about fiscal policy -- Balls asks Osborne to rule out cutting the top rate of tax. The chancellor replies by attacking Balls' plan to raise the rate to 50p, saying it's anti-business and has been refuted by the IFS already.

Over in Parliament, MPs are holding Treasury questions -- they're discussing important issues like infrastructure spending (Danny Alexander is denying that the government is moving too slowly).

One opposition MP, Sammy Wilson, DUP member for East Antrim, just welcomed the news that the economy was growing, but asked what is happening to stimulate growth beyond London.

David Gauke, exchequer secretary, replies that employment has gone up in every region of the UK since the election.

The quarterly GDP data has become increasingly charged with political implications as the next election draws nearer (scheduled for May 2015).

Faisal Islam of Channel 4 comments:

Britain's businesses need to stop sitting on their cash piles and crank up their investment, argues IPPR’s chief economist Tony Dolphin:

“The news that manufacturing is growing is welcome. But businesses have been sitting on a lot of cash, and the economy is still smaller than before the crisis. We need more business investment and a pick up in exports before we can truly see this economic growth as sustainable.

“Much of the recovery is based in London in the finance and business sectors but we need to see growth across the whole country. We need more sectors like the car industry taking up the baton of recovery, investing in plant and machinery to drive an increase in productivity. The jobs market held up better than expected but unless we see investment by companies in their capabilities we won’t see the growth in living standards that we want.

Dolphin is also concerned that few lessons have been learned since the crisis ripped through the financial markets and the global economy: 

“Strong growth in the short-term does not mean that structural weaknesses in the UK economy that became more evident during the ‘Great Recession’ have been eliminated. Unless we move to adopt a new economic model, the recovery will prove unsustainable and bittersweet for those who do not benefit from it before it is extinguished.”

Andrew Goodwin, senior economic adviser to the EY ITEM Club, reckons growth rates will slip back during 2014 because of the financial pressure on households: 

The challenge now is to broaden out the recovery beyond the consumer and housing market. The enduring squeeze on real wages will limit the consumers’ ability to continue to drive the recovery forwards. 

Investment and exports are likely to have improved in Q4, but not enough to drive growth forward at the pace we’ve become accustomed to. So the chances are that the pace of growth will slow a little through 2014.

Rob Wood of Berenberg Bank isn't worried by the 0.3% drop in construction output in the last quarter, and 

With all construction surveys red hot right now, construction should bounce back quickly and economy wide growth should accelerate further. There are absolutely no signs of growth slowing anytime soon. If anything, the risks are towards an acceleration. 

He predicts strong growth both this year and next year, as the Bank of England's exceptionally loose monetary policy reaps dividends:

The 2013 data show that low interest rates and a massive housing stimulus can be a very powerful tailwind indeed, offsetting headwinds to growth from factors like deleveraging. With every chance that some of the headwinds will fade this year, the monetary policy tailwind should drive UK growth higher over the next two years. 

The recovery will snowball. We expect the economy to expand by 3.0% in 2014 and then 3.3% in 2015.

Stronger growth will put more pressure on the Bank to raise interest rates -- although governor Mark Carney spent a lot of his time at Davos last week insisting that the UK economy isn't strong enough yet. 

Here's our full news story about today's GDP data:

UK economy grew 1.9% in 2013 – the fastest growth since 2007

The British economy grew at the strongest rate in six years in 2013, having ended the year on a strong note as the recovery became more entrenched.

The UK's services and manufacturing sectors were the drivers of 0.7% growth in the fourth quarter, taking the annual growth rate to 1.9%, the strongest since 2007 before the financial crisis took hold.

The economy grew in every quarter last year according to the Office for National Statistics, providing a significant boost for the chancellor who has persistently argued that a burgeoning recovery is proof that his economic plan is working.

The CBI are also upbeat about prospects this year. CBI director-general John Cridland says:

The economy is growing and the recovery gathering momentum. This is good news, and we’re seeing improvement across many different sectors.

While I chew through the GDP data, our senior political correspondent Andrew Sparrow is liveblogging from parliament where top executives from Atos and G4S are being questioned by MPs over public sector reform. 

Atos and G4S questioned by MPs: Politics live blog

Jeremy Cook, chief economist of World First, the currency exchange firm, reckons the UK ended the year in 'fine fettle', even though the service sector provided much of the growth, again....

“The 0.3% fall in construction output will be a concern, but I would hope that an increased level of investment throughout 2014 should reverse this."

The government needs to do more to sustain the recovery, warns John Longworth, Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce.

Longworth said the rise in GDP confirms anecdotal evidence that UK firms are "ever more bullish", but rising confidence isn't enough:

 “It is of course heartening that Britain is now amongst the fastest-growing advanced economies. But more must be done to shore up the foundations of this recovery if it is to be a lasting one. 

Unless we do much better on the three 'T's - training, transport infrastructure and trade support - our aspirations for investment at home and success around the globe cannot be achieved.

You can see the ONS data online here.

Here's ONS chief economist Joe Grice's official comment on today's growth data:

"We have now seen four successive quarters of significant growth and the economy does seem to be improving more consistently.

"Today's estimate suggests over four fifths of the fall in GDP during the recession has been recovered, although it still remains 1.3 per cent below the pre-recession peak."

David Cameron tweets that today's growth figures shows that the government's plans are working:

Today's data  also means that the UK has grown for all four quarters in a calendar year -- that's not happened since 2008  (although the double dip was revised away, there have been occasional quarters of negative or flat growth)

Joe Grice repeated that that there is now a "rather better tone" to the UK economy, after four quarters of growth.

Grice declined to say when UK workers might finally see wages rising in real terms, but did point out that inflation has recently fallen.

Joe Grice explains that the 0.3% drop in construction output may be down to seasonal factors (worth remembering, though that the building sector had seen growing strongly early in the year).

Asked about the wider state of the UK economy, Grice says that "in the last year we have had more balanced growth than previously, but over the longer period we have had a divergence in the recovery."

That's shown by the fact that that the Service sector is now bigger than before the financial markets were convulsed by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, but construction and manufacturing are someway shy.

The recovery has been somewhat erratic, says Joe Grice, but it "feels like the economy now has a better tone".

However the UK economy is still 1.3% smaller than before the financial crisis began.

The UK service sector grew by 0.8% in the fourth quarter, and Industrial output racked up 0.7% growth.

But Construction output fell by 0.3% in the October-December period.

That means the services sector is higher than in 2008.

But both industrial production and construction are around 11% smaller than before the crisis, Grice adds

On an annual basis, GDP for 2013 was 1.9% higher than in 2012, says the ONS's Joe Grice.

That, I believe, means Britain has recorded its strongest growth for any year since 2007.

Fact for the morning, via Sky News's Ed Conway - Poland is the fastest-growing member of the EU since the financial crisis began in 2008: 

James Ramsbottom, chief executive of the North East Chamber of Commerce, just put his finger on the underlying issue with the British recovery - it doesn't feel like a recovery for most of us, yet anyway.

Speaking on the BBC's Today Programme, Ramsbottom said that manufacturing had "sustained" his region's economy (Nissan have a big plant in Sunderland) while construction has only recently picked up.

"But for many people on the street, it doesn't feel like it's changed," Ramsbottom added.

Rob Marshall, who runs a web design firm, also cautioned that he didn't feel any better about business conditions than a year ago. But he has hired more staff since founding his firm in 2009, growing from four staff to 13.

Duncan Weldon, the TUC's senior economist, makes four important points about today's data (in this blog): 

It’s provisional data, it won't tell us much about  living standards, UK productivity may still be falling, and Britain has lost a lot of ground against most comparable countries since the crisis began:

Another point to watch will be which sectors of the UK economy did best - services, construction or manufacturing.

Weldon says:

Whilst the top line figure will tell us something about the overall pace of the recovery, the sector breakdown will tell us about its balance.

Back to UK GDP. It's worth remembering that, despite the decent growth seen so far this year, Britain's economy has still not reached its pre-crisis peak. Three months ago it was still 2.5% smaller than its peak in 2008.

The ONS reported last month that the UK grew by 0.5% in the first quarter of 2013, then 0.8% in the second and third quarters.

An important development in emerging economies this morning -- India surprised the markets by announcing a surprise rise in interest rates, from 7.75% to 8%. 

The move is designed to underpin the rupee, and also to target India's inflation rate. Central Bank chief Raghuram Rajam said he might be able to cut rates again in future once inflation has been pegged back. 

The unexpected move comes hours before the central bank of Turkey (also under pressure in the recent emerging market turmoil) meets to discuss monetary policy. Many analysts expect a rate hike, or other measures, to prevent the Turkish lira being further routed.

A reminder that while Britain's recovery continues, there's the potential for upheaval elsewhere....