Good morning. Britain’s economy has returned to growth for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic forced the country to lock down.But it’s still a quarter smaller than before the crisis began.
UK GDP rose by 1.8% in May, according to data just released by the latest estimate from the Office for National Statistics. That follows the record slump of 20.3% in April, and a 6.9% decline in March.This suggests the gradual reopening of some UK businesses in mid-May helped the economy off the mat, as some factories resumed operations and construction workers picked up tools.But this is rather weaker than hoped - City economists had forecast a 5.5% jump in growth for May. And the scale of the economic damage in the last quarter is still immense. Today’s data shows that the UK economy shrank by 19.1% in the March-May quarter. That’s horrendous loss of activity that is already leading to job losses and store closures. The agenda • 7am BST: UK GDP report for May • 10am BST: ZEW’s German economic sentiment index for July • 1.30pm BST: US inflation data for June • 2pm: NIESR publishes its monthly UK GDP Tracker for April-June We’ll be tracking all the main events throughout the day ...
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