BOE’s Bean Says U.K. Growth Will Pick Up Next Year, Sun Reports

Bank of England Deputy Governor Charles Bean said U.K. economic growth will improve next year as inflation slows, the Sun reported, citing an interview.

“There is light at the end of the tunnel,” Bean told the London-based newspaper. “It’s a long tunnel, I won’t dispute that. Even next year, if the squeeze in household income has stopped, it still won’t be pretty strong growth. But it won’t be as bad as this year.”

Bean said inflation, which accelerated to 4.5 percent in August, will come down “in time for the Olympics” in London in 2012 as oil and petrol prices decline, the Sun reported. Britons’ pay growth will also increase, the newspaper cited Bean as saying.

While economic indicators in the past few months have been “disappointing” and “the outlook is weaker now than it was,” Bean said he didn’t think it was “appropriate” for the bank to expand its 200 billion-pound ($315 billion) bond-purchase program at its policy meeting in August, the Sun reported.

“We have done a considerable amount of work on looking at the benefits” of so-called quantitative easing, he told the newspaper. “If we need more stimulus, another dollop of QE would be effective, but it all hinges on the outlook.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Scott Hamilton in London at shamilton8@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Craig Stirling at cstirling1@bloomberg.net