The UK has emerged from the longest recession in its history, following economic growth of 0.1% in the last three months of 2009.
A larger growth of 0.4% had been predicted but it brings to an end six consecutive quarterly depreciations.
The UK is the last major G7 economy to come out of recession, following the recovery of the US, Japanese, German and French markets last year.
There have been recent signs of economic stabilisation, just last week it was announced that unemployment had fell for the first time in 18 months.
However, sceptics have predicted that because the growth was so small, in the busiest economic quarter, the UK will slip back into recession in the coming months.
It would be catastrophic for Gordon Brown's upcoming election campaign if the UK were to fall into a second recession of his tenure.
Market analyst Jonathon Loynes from Capital Economics: "The Q4 GDP figures are a major blow to hopes that the UK economy had emerged decisively from recession in Q4.
"No doubt some commentators will claim that the figures are under-estimating the true strength of the recovery and will be revised up in time.
"That is certainly possible. But it won't change the big picture of an economy still operating way below both its pre-recession and trend levels of output."
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