020 7898 0500Sterling weakened as the BoE’s ‘Super Thursday’ announcements filtered through. At this month’s meeting, the BoE’s MPC voted 7-1 to keep interest rates on hold, as expected.
During the press conference and report it was revealed that UK economic growth forecasts for 2017 have been adjusted from 2% to 1.9%. In addition, they have also increased their inflation forecast to 2.7% from its February forecast of 2.4%.
The negative feelings from the announcement had actually started earlier in the day, when the UK manufacturing data posted a poor figure. Manufacturing output fell 0.6% in March, construction dipped 0.7%, while industrial output as a whole slumped 0.5% – its third straight monthly decline. This fell short of the forecast number and could point to the rate of slowdown increasing.
Today is a quiet day for the UK, but the G7 summit in Italy will take place soon, where leaders will be discussing a range of global economic issues, including growth, regulation and finance. We’ll be reporting on that as and when the news comes through.
