Image for representational purposes only. The UK economy recorded its strongest growth in almost three years in the first quarter of 2024, ending the shallow recession it entered in the second half of last year. | Photo source: AFP
The data will be good news for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who said the economy was “on track”
The British economy recorded its strongest growth in almost three years in the first quarter of 2024, ending the shallow recession it fell into in the second half of last year and giving Prime Minister Rishi Sunak a boost ahead of the election.
The Office for National Statistics said gross domestic product grew by 0.6% in the three months to March, the strongest growth since the fourth quarter of 2021, when it rose 1.5%.
AND Reuters A survey of economists showed gross domestic product growing by 0.4% in the January-March period, after GDP contracted by 0.3% in the final quarter of 2023.
The May 10 figures will be good news for Sunak, who has said the economy has “recovered”, although the opposition Labor Party, which has a immense lead in the polls, has accused Sunak and Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt of not having the touch to believe that voters feel better.
“There is no doubt that it has been a tough few years, but today’s growth figures show that the economy is recovering for the first time since the pandemic,” Hunt said.
The Bank of England, which kept interest rates at a 16-year high on May 9, forecast a quarterly rise of 0.4% in the first quarter of this year and a smaller rise of 0.2% in the second quarter.
Immediately after the data was published, the pound sterling strengthened against the US dollar.
On a monthly basis, the economy grew by 0.4% in March, which was faster than the 0.1% growth forecast by economists in Reuters vote.
The UK remains one of the countries that is slowest to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.
At the end of the first quarter of 2024, the country’s economy was only 1.7% larger than at the end of 2019, before the pandemic, and only Germany from the G7 group performed worse.
