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The Confederation of British Industry expects the UK economy to grow by 0.3% in Q1
Predicting 0.3% growth in the first quarter of 2013 the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has today said whilst growth would be relatively flat it “might be edging upwards”.
Speaking to the BBC about the predicted growth the CBI’s director-general John Cridland, said that during “January I’d just begun to see signs that small, medium and large companies – particularly those exporting and beginning to get some benefit from the eurozone crisis moving away a little bit and the slightly better news from America – are feeling optimistic about what will come next”.
Mr Cridland called for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, to invest more in infrastructure spending, ahead of the UK’s budget is announcement on the 20th March, saying the chancellor “put a lot more into capital spending back in December in his Autumn Statement. I’d like to see him do more of the same”.
Calling for the government to improve the method by which it allocates infrastructure spending the CBI chief argued for local authorities to receive “a bit more money to fill some of those winter snow potholes, get some more houses built – because pothole filling and housebuilding can be done in months, not years”.
Mr Cridland’s remarks come on the same day that the governor of the Bank of England, Sir Mervyn King, argued that recovery was in sight for the UK economy.
