{"id":7906,"date":"2024-05-10T15:48:06","date_gmt":"2024-05-10T12:18:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/?p=7906"},"modified":"2024-05-10T15:48:06","modified_gmt":"2024-05-10T12:18:06","slug":"uk-economy-exits-recession-ahead-of-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/?p=7906","title":{"rendered":"UK economy exits recession ahead of election"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"headline_content_block post_template-0\">\n<div class=\"headline_section mb-2\">\n<h4 class=\"font-weight-bold\">\u00a0Britain exited recession with stronger-than-expected growth in the first quarter of 2024, official data showed Friday, ina boost to embattled Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ahead of this year&#8217;s election.Gross domestic product expanded by 0.6 percent in the first three months of this year, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said in a statement, beating market expectations of 0.4 percent.The economy had suffered two successive quarters of contraction in the second half of last year, meeting the technical definition of a recession on the back of elevated inflation and a cost-of-living crisis.Sunak, whose governing Conservatives are trailing the main opposition Labour Party ahead of a general election, has made economic growth one of his top priorities.&#8221;There is no doubt it has been a difficult few years, but today&#8217;s growth figures are proof that the economy is returning to full health for the first time since the pandemic,&#8221; said finance minister Jeremy Hunt.&#8221;We&#8217;re growing this year and have the best outlook among European G7countries over the next six years,&#8221; he added.Friday&#8217;s bright news came one day after the Bank of England kept its main interest rate at a 16-year high, but hinted at a cut over the summer as UK inflation cools further &#8212; and forecast emergence from recession.&#8221;After two quarters of contraction, the UK economy returned to positive growth in the first three months of this year,&#8221; said ONS director of economic statistics Liz McKeown.&#8221;There was broad-based strength across the service industries with retail, public transport and haulage, and health all performing well.&#8221;Car manufacturers also had a good quarter. These were only a little offset by another weak quarter for construction.&#8221;GDP had shrunk by 0.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2023 after contracting by 0.1 percent in the prior three months.<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"dtl_share_blk clearfix\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0Britain exited recession with stronger-than-expected growth in the first quarter of 2024, official data showed Friday, ina boost to embattled Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ahead of this year&#8217;s election.Gross domestic product expanded by 0.6 percent in the first three months of this year, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said in a statement, beating market expectations of 0.4 percent.The economy had suffered two successive quarters of contraction in the second half of last year, meeting the technical definition of a recession on the back of elevated inflation and a cost-of-living<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"yes","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_5980380192037842_108390337697511":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7906"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7908,"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7906\/revisions\/7908"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyenglishtimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}