Australia’s economy has grown by a better than expected 0.9 per cent in the first three months of 2015, helped by strong exports and home building activity.

Gross domestic product (GDP) was also well up at 2.3 per cent over the 12 months to March, official figures out Wednesday showed.

That’s better than the 0.5 per cent quarterly rise and 1.9 per cent annual rate economists surveyed by AAP predicted last week.

JP Morgan economist Ben Jarman said the upbeat result was supported by positive exports and home building numbers.

“It looks like exports did well… and you had home building also having a decent contribution,” he said.

He said the data also showed mining investment was still a weak point in the economy, labelling it a “key downside risk”.

Mr Jarman said the GDP figures would likely keep the Reserve Bank from cutting the cash rate for some time.

The RBA kept interest rates on hold on Tuesday after cutting them to a historic low of two per cent in May.

“The quarterly result was stronger than the RBA was forecasting in their last statement on monetary policy, so it helps them stay on the sidelines for a while,” Mr Jarman said.

“Things look reasonable for the economy underneath.”

NAB chief markets economist Ivan Colhoun described the data as quite a good result.

“It does highlight the mixed nature of the economy, we’ve got weak mining investment, strong housing construction, moderate consumer spending, strong export growth,” he said.

“We’ve got a very diverse economy at the moment depending on which sector of the economy you’re talking about.”

Mr Colhoun said there is still a lot of room for improvement, especially in the areas of consumer spending and business investment.

He said the data would make an interest rate cut by the RBA later in the year less of a possibility.

“The Reserve Bank is focused on the outlook and is still expecting weak mining investment but I think this will have been stronger than their expectations.”