British Chambers of Commerce Upgrade UK Economic Outlook

The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) lifted its forecast for the UK economic growth, however, showed warning that UK will be the worst performing economy among other G7 countries in 2020. The GDP outlook of the BCC is 1.1 to 1.4 percent for this year and 1.3 to 1.5 percent in 2019.While, the initial growth forecast is 1.6 percent for 2020, as the revision was steered by the slightly stronger than anticipated consumer expenditure. Moreover, exports from Britain is predicted to remain stable amid robust global growth. On the other hand, imports could possibly resume its expansion and the net trade contribution to the country’s GDP in the short term appears to be limited, as the pound support Britain’s overall net trade position. In spite of the increases, the UK GDP is expected to remain below the historical average during the forecasting period.

The non-profit organization stated that productivity is projected to have slight improvement compared over its estimated outcome but continued to be weak restrained by the underlying issues within the country, such as skills shortages and failure in infrastructure investment. The BCC expects that inflation will pick up and start to ease in the near term since the impact of the post-Brexit toned down upon the weakening the Sterling. Furthermore, there are assumptions that the next hike in UK official interest rates will reach 0.7 percent in the second quarter of 2018, which could be followed by another rise in Q1 next year. The business body foresees that public sector borrowing in Britain will come in over £13.4bn for the next three years compared with the projection issued at the Spring Statement by the Office for Budget Responsibility last week.