U.K. Set for ‘Uninspiring’ Growth After Weak Start to 2018
- EY Item Club says 1Q GDP growth may have been as low as 0.2%
- Forecasts two BOE rate increases in both 2018 and 2019
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The U.K. economy shows little sign of breaking out of its “pattern of uninspiring growth,” and the first quarter may have been weaker than expected.
The first three months of the year may have seen gross domestic product gain as little as 0.2 percent as severe weather cramped growth, a report by the EY Item Club will say Monday. That’s below the 0.3 percent estimate of economists before the initial reading of the data, which will be published Friday. It also downgraded its annual forecast to 1.6 percent, from 1.7 percent previously.