Early on Friday in Europe, the British pound lost ground, hitting new multi-week lows against the euro and the franc and declined against the yen and the US dollar, amid national economic reports.

Thus, UK reported  country’s  service sector output rose 0.6% month-on-month in December, faster than the 0.2% rise in November, data released by the Office for National Statistics showed Friday.  On an annual basis, service sector output fell by 1.4% after decreasing 2.3% in November. Output fell for a fourteenth consecutive month in December.

UK's GDP rose by 0.3% sequentially in the fourth quarter, the Office for National Statistics reported today. The fourth quarter figure was revised up from the preliminary estimate of 0.1%. Economists were expecting a sequential increase of 0.2%. The fourth quarter growth follows six quarters of contraction, which made it the longest recession since records began in 1955. Annually, GDP was down 3.3% in the fourth quarter, revised from 3.2% fall estimated initially. The consensus forecast was for 3.1% fall.

Household spending rose 0.4% quarter-on-quarter and government final consumption expenditure increased 1.2%. Meanwhile, gross fixed capital formation fell 3.1% and inventories continued to decline, down GBP 2.8 billion on the quarter.

Around 4:30 am ET Friday, the pound declined to new multi-week lows of 1.6429 against the franc and 0.8916 per euro. Yesterday's closing quotes for GBP/CHF and EUR/GBP pairs were 1.6494 and 0.8878, respectively.

GBP/JPY pair that showed choppy trading in Asian deals slipped during early European session. At 5:00 am ET, the pound fell to 136.15 against the yen. As of now, the pair is trading at 136.33, compared to yesterday's close of 136.06.

At 5:05 am ET, the pound declined to 1.5254 against its US counterpart. At present, Cable is trading near yesterday's close of 1.5266.