British economy facing deepest recession

---

LONDON, April 25 (Xinhua): The British economy shrank 1.9 per cent 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 per cent 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 per cent 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 per cent in 2010 and 3.5 per cent since 2011.
The International Monetary Fund gave a much worse forecast for the British economy. It said that the economy would shrink 4.1 per cent in 2009 and still contract 0.4 per cent in 2010.
Manufacturing output in Britain in the first quarter declined 6. 2 per cent compared with the previous quarter.