“With the UK clearly finding growth pretty hard to come by at the moment, amid significant domestic and global uncertainties, we expect GDP growth to be limited to 2.1 per cent in 2016.”
Economic growth slipped from 2.9% in 2014 to 2.2% for the whole of 2015, reinforcing the view that the Bank of England will not raise interest rates at least until the end of this year or even early in 2017.
Governor Mark Carney has indicated rates will not rise until the economy is shows growth of at least 0.6% a quarter.
The pound jumped half a cent against the dollar on the fourth quarter figure.
