Britain at significant risk of recession: Think tank
September 9th, 2011 - 7:08 pm ICT by IANSLondon, Sep 9 (IANS) The British economy is at “significant risk” of sliding back towards recession, a Paris-based think tank has said.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said growth had come to a “virtual halt” across Western Europe.
In Britain, it predicted growth of just 0.1 percent for the third quarter between July and August, that will go even lower - 0.075 percent over the end of the year, The Sun reported.
Henrik Braconier, senior OECD economist warned there was a risk of even “negative growth”.
“What we have seen is that data has been coming in measurably weaker than we expected, notably on the trade side. The support we expected from exports has vanished in Britain and that is mostly what has driven these downward revisions. There have been almost five quarters of virtually no growth from the end of 2010,” he said.
Chief economist Pier Carlo Padoan said the “only weapon left” was for the Bank of England to pump more money into the economy.
Economists say another round of Quantitative Easing (QE) - or printing more money - was now almost inevitable.
“An expansion in QE looks increasingly likely in both Britain and the US. It’s the only straightforward measure policymakers have left in the short term. The West is in for a long, hard slog of a recovery,” the Centre for Economics and Business Research said in a statement.
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Tags: bank of england, british economy, business research, chief economist, development oecd, economic cooperation, economics, economists, london, organisation for economic cooperation and development, paris, qe, quantitative easing, quarters, recession, revisions, risk, tank, virtual halt, western europe