国际英语新闻：British economy suffers deepest recession in 30 years

LONDON, April 24 (Xinhua) -- The British economy shrank 1.9 percent in the first quarter of 2009, which was much worse than expected and was the biggest quarterly decline in GDP since the third quarter of 1979.

    The economy was even worse than that seen in the fourth quarter of 2008. GDP in Britain in the first quarter of this year plummeted 4.1 percent year-on-year, which was the largest annual decline since 1980, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

    Figures from the ONS showed that GDP has now contracted for consecutive three quarters and confirmed that the British economy has been in steep recession. Britain has been viewed as the last advanced country to step out of recession.

    "Any recovery looks some distance away," said Howard Archer, chief British and European economist from IHS Global Insight. "But we expect the economy to contract at a slowing rate through the rest of 2009 and the first quarter of 2010 before stabilizing. So GDP contraction of 4 percent or more looks very much on the cards for 2009."

    This cast doubts over the Chancellor Alistair Darling's forecast in the 2009/10 budget that the economy would start growing at the end of this year and receive a growth of 1.25 percent in 2010 and 3.5 percent since 2011.

    The International Monetary Fund gave a much worse forecast for the British economy. It said that the economy would shrink 4.1 percent in 2009 and still contract 0.4 percent in 2010.

    Manufacturing output in Britain in the first quarter declined 6.2 percent compared with the previous quarter, the worst quarterly decline since records began in 1948, according to the ONS. The business services and finance, which accounted for about 30 percent of Britain's total GDP, also recorded the biggest drop in output.

    Consumer spending would be pressurized heavily by soaring unemployment and markedly reduced income growth, while business investment is being slashed in the face of sharply weakened final demand, rising levels of spare capacity, worsening cash flows and tight credit conditions, said Archer.

    Thus, he expected that the Bank of England, central bank of Britain, would keep the interest rate down at 0.5 percent until deep into next year and the bank would also possibly extend its quantitative easing program.