Tonight:
-1°c
Further evidence that Britain's worst recession since the Second World War is over emerged today, with upbeat figures issued by the OECD.
The Paris-based economics forum said that its “leading indicators” — a collection of data it uses in order to measure performance — show that the British economy improved for the eighth month running in September.
The latest official UK GDP numbers showed that, officially anyway, Britain is still mired in recession.
Economists have since argued that these figures were a blip and that growth is highly likely to return in the fourth quarter of this year.
The OECD said that the leading indicators rose by 1.7 points in the UK, and there is also growth in Italy, France and China. The recovery is already clearly visible in the US, says the OECD.
Howard Archer at Global Insight said: “We strongly suspect that the economy will return to growth in the fourth quarter, as consumer spending is lifted by the car scrappage scheme and some consumption being brought forward ahead of January's value-added tax hike.”
Meanwhile, producer input prices rose by 2.6% in October, as manufacturers were forced to pay higher prices for oil and IT equipment.
The rise was much higher than economists anticipated.
Factory gate inflation also picked up, but here the rise was no more than expected.
Producer output prices rose 1.7% on the year in October, up from 0.4% in September and the highest reading since March.
Reader views (3)
“leading indicators” They obviously missed these when the UK economy went into meltdown under Brown's stewardship. The sub-prime fiasco slipped past them as well. The OECD stands for the Economic Organisation of Credibility Dorks.
- Frederick, London
Look at the US unemployment data today! Another disappointing number 193,000 vs expected 163,000 jobs LOST! There are now 16.5m Americans unemployed, 10.2%. This will be a jobless recovery, slow and drawn out. The same for the UK, possibly worse.
- James Macleod Ritchie, Oyster Bay Cove
Six successive quarters in recession, but the last of those quarters was a "blip"?? I've never read so much rubbish in my life.
Weren't they saying the same thing last month?
- Dave Markham, London, UK
