U.K. economic growth accelerates in three months to October - NIESR

The NIESR’s monthly estimates of U.K. GDP for the three months to October imply that the output grew 0.5 percent, a bit stronger than the official outturn for the third quarter of 2017, which was 0.4 percent. The monthly estimate is closely tracking the projection for real GDP growth for the final quarter of this year which also stands at 0.5 percent.

“We estimate that economic growth recovered to 0.5 per cent in the three months to October from 0.4 percent in the third quarter”, said Amit Kara, Head of UK Macroeconomic Forecasting at NIESR.

Kara stated that even if the economic growth is expected to be stronger in the second half of 2017 as compared with the first, it is significant to note that activity has decelerated since 2016. The pattern of demand in the U.K. economy is expected to rebalance towards international trade in response to bolstering global growth and subdued sterling and away from domestic demand.

“If, as we expect, the economy continues to expand at this pace and inflation remains elevated, there is a case for the Bank of England to gradually raise the policy rate to stop the economy from overheating. Consistent with that view, our latest forecast for the UK is conditioned on a 25 basis points increase in Bank Rate every six months such that the policy rate reaches 2 per cent in 2021”, added Amit Kara.

At 17:00 GMT the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of British Pound was bullish at 82.9394, while the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of US Dollar was neutral at 12.5088. For more details on FxWirePro's Currency Strength Index, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex

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