UK Overview

摘要

1. The UK economy is now officially in recession and there is evidence that declining activity has started to feed through into large scale job losses. The preliminary estimate for 2008Q4 showed that GDP plunged byrn1.5%, the largest quarterly drop since 1980Q2.rn2. The momentum from a poor November and December will ensure that Q1 is also bad. The December PMI surveys reported a further sharp contraction in activity. January's CBI surveys were equally downbeat, with manufacturers reporting their weakest output expectations since the survey began in 1975 and retailers seeing further sharp annual sales. We expect GDP to contract by at least another 1% in 2009Q1.