UK recession confirmed as economy slides
24-01-2009
Britain is now in recession for the first time since 1991, official government figures have confirmed. Gross domestic product fell by 1.5 percent in the last three months of 2008 after a 0.6 percent drop in the previous quarter. That means that the widely accepted definition of a recession - two consecutive quarters of falling economic growth - has been met. It represents the biggest quarter-on-quarter decline since 1980, and a 1.8 percent fall on the same quarter a year ago. The news sent sterling to a 25-year low against the US dollar, with one pound buying $1.36. The figures, from the Office for National Statistics, showed that manufacturing made the largest contribution to the slowdown, contracting by 4.6 percent after a 1.6 percent decrease in the previous quarter.
