The British pound ended the week higher on Friday, brushing off disastrous industrial production figures, and instead focusing on US Fed President Janet Yellen’s dovish speech.

At close of trade on Friday the British currency finished at US$1.4127c up 0.51 percent from Thursday’s trade.

Monthly industrial production figures from the UK hit the market at -1.1 percent, much less than the -0.2 percent figure analysts had been expecting while the yearly figure came in at -0.5 percent against a consensus of 0.0 percent.

The numbers clearly shows Britain’s manufacturing sector is in disarray which does not sit well in the lead up to the Brexit vote in June.

"The February trade and industrial production data provide a double whammy of very disappointing news for the UK economy that bodes ill for first-quarter growth prospects," said Howard Archer, chief UK economist at IHS Global Insight.

"It reinforces our belief that GDP growth will have been no better than 0.4% quarter-on-quarter in the first quarter, down from 0.6% quarter-on-quarter in the fourth quarter of 2015." he added

Keeping the pound alive last week was another speech by US Fed president Janet Yellen where she confirmed that the US central bank would take a gradual approach in tightening monetary policy.