The British Chambers of Commerce has cut its forecast for the UK\u2019s economic growth in 2015 after citing a weak start to the year.<\/p>\n
It said in a report that Britain\u2019s economy will expand by 2.3 per cent in 2015, which is down from its previous forecast of 2.7 per cent.<\/p>\n
However, despite expecting a steady recovery, it warned the country\u2019s vast trade deficit is a \u201ctimebomb\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile this slowdown will serve as a warning about the strength of our economic recovery, we believe the UK will secure steady growth in the years to come,\u201d said John Longworth, the BCC\u2019s director general.<\/p>\n
Economists polled by Reuters expect Britain\u2019s economy will expand around 2.5 percent this year and 2.4 percent in 2016.<\/p>\n
The BCC said it expected a hefty pick-up in earnings over the next few years, and further declines in Britain\u2019s unemployment rate.<\/p>\n
But it warned the recovery has been too reliant on consumer spending, and highlighted Britain\u2019s trade deficit as the most pressing worry.<\/p>\n
The goods trade deficit widened in the first quarter of 2015 to nearly 30 billion pounds ($41 billion), underscoring one of the economic challenges facing the Government following elections.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe trade deficit is an economic time-bomb waiting to go off. We have to confront it head-on and that means getting more of our businesses exporting their goods and services overseas,\u201d added Mr Longworth.<\/p>\n
The BCC pushed back by three months its forecast for the next Bank of England interest rate hike from a record-low 0.5 percent to the second quarter of 2016 – slightly later than the Reuters poll consensus.<\/p>\n
Last month, BoE Governor Mark Carney said last month it was \u201cpossible\u201d that interest rates would be higher in a year’s time from now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The British Chambers of Commerce has cut its forecast for the UK\u2019s economic growth in 2015 after citing a weak start to the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":806,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805\/revisions\/806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}