The UK economy contracted for the first time in the second quarter, driven by a decline in both manufacturing and services.
The National Statistics Office announced that the UK economy, which grew by 0.8 percent on a quarterly basis in the first quarter, contracted by 0.1 percent in the second quarter. A 0.2 percent contraction was predicted in the Bloomberg survey.
The slowdown in retail sales caused the most significant impact on the economic contraction. The manufacturing sector also fell during this period. With the rise in inflation and the remarkable jump in energy prices in October, the Bank of England expects the country’s economy to enter a recession at the end of this year and not grow until the second half of 2024. The economy contracted by 0.6 percent in June.
