Increased mining exports helped lift the pace of economic growth in the final three months of 2013, but other sectors of the economy are still weighing on growth.

Australia’s economy expanded by 0.8 per cent in the December quarter, for an annual rate of 2.8 per cent, official figures show.

The figures were slightly better than economists and the Reserve Bank of Australia had expected, but the domestic economy is still soft, National Australia Bank senior economist David de Garis said.

“The growth is supported by the ramp up in exports,” he said.

“The domestic economy is still quite soft and domestic final demand only grew by 1.2 per cent over the course of last year.”

He said the data was unlikely to alter the central banks’ neutral stance.

“They’ll still be looking for domestic final demand really to show a bit more grip,” he said.

“They are already seeing that in the housing sector in yesterday’s building approvals but beyond that, it’s patchy.”

Twelve economists surveyed by AAP last week said gross domestic product (GDP) was expected to rise by 0.7 per cent in the quarter and 2.5 per cent in the year to December.

The December quarter growth followed a 0.6 per cent rise in GDP in the September quarter, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday.

Commonwealth Bank economist Diana Mousina said the housing sector is showing some signs that it will achieve sustained growth.

“What really drove the result was an indication that the mining to non-mining transition is occurring at a faster pace than what we previously saw,” she said.

“It was really encouraging to see that residential construction is firmly picking up, that’s what we’ve seen in building approvals trends in the past few months.”

Ms Mousina said it looks like GDP will continue to get faster in 2014.

“That’s after a period of weakness and it’s good for government revenues and business investment and expenditure plans in the future, so that bodes well for the employment market.”