United Kingdom economic growth may have slowed down in the three months to the end of July, according to the latest estimate from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) published on Tuesday.
Advertisement
In the three months to July, the economy grew by 0.3 per cent, the think tank estimated.
The latest NIESR GDP estimate indicated expansion of 0.3% in the three months to the end of July 2016 from 0.6% the previous month.
The think-tank has warned there is a 50/50 chance of Britain falling into recession – two quarters in a row of falling GDP – over the next 18 months following the 23 June Brexit vote. Niesr said the figures confirmed their previous prediction that the United Kingdom has a 50-50 chance of dipping into a technical recession – defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth.
It also delivered an emergency economy-boosting package, with £60 billion (€70 billion) of extra quantitative easing, a £10 billion corporate debt-buying programme and a scheme worth up to £100 billion to encourage banks to lend.
In forecasts released earlier this month, it said growth was likely to slow to 1.7 per cent in 2016 and 1 per cent in 2017.
Looking at the month-on-month data, there was an estimated contraction of 0.2% for July, which will maintain technical recession fears.
So far the latest NIESR quarterly forecast is in line with forecasts which anticipated a contraction of 0.2% in the third quarter of the year. It had previously pencilled in growth of 2.3 per cent in both 2017 and 2018.
Advertisement
UK GDP growth had cooled in the first three months of the year, to 0.4% from 0.6% at the end of 2015.
