The UK's manufacturing sector posted its fourth consecutive monthly improvement in July, the statistics office said today, though it warned that larger-than-usual revisions could be made to the July data because of a low survey response rate. The office of National Statistics said manufacturing output rose by 0.1 pct from June, in line with market expectations. The July increase is the fourth in a row. That has not happened since August-December 2000. A spokesman for the statistics office described the performance as "steady" but noted that the trend in the sector remains for lower output. The trend estimate for manufacturing continues to show a fall in the annual growth rate of 1 pct. On a year-on-year basis, manufacturing output was up 0.2 pct, better than expectations of an unchanged rate. In June, the annual rate was 0.9 pct lower. The turnaround may ease fears that the sector is falling back into recession. As recently as February, the annual rate was 1.4 pct higher. Despite the relatively good news, the statistics office warned that today's data may be subject to more revisions than usual because the response rate to the survey was lower than usual.