People holding umbrellas on London Bridge.
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LONDON – British economic growth stalled in April, preliminary data showed on Wednesday, stalling a modest rebound from last year’s recession.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected growth to level off after growing 0.4% in March.
Looking at the longer time frame, the picture was slightly brighter, with gross domestic product rising 0.7% in the three months to April.
Construction output fell for the third consecutive time, down 1.4%, with production falling 0.9%. The UK’s leading services sector continued to grow, growing by 0.2%.
The UK has managed modest growth in the first three months of the year, emerging from a shallow recession throughout the first quarter.
Lindsay James, investment strategist at Quilter Investors, attributed April’s slowdown to recent gloomy weather.
“Continued rains have prevented consumers from spending money and caused economic growth to stall this month,” James said in an email.
“While the recent improvement in weather may boost May’s numbers, the second quarter got off to a slow start and there is still a lot of work to be done if we are to catch up with the 0.6% growth in the first quarter.”
Quarterly growth reported last month heightened bets that the Bank of England would start cutting interest rates in June, but market expectations have changed significantly since then.
The Bank of England will meet on June 20 to decide on the next step in monetary policy.
Mixed labor force data released on Tuesday showed that the UK unemployment rate unexpectedly rose to its highest level in two and a half years, while wage growth was higher than expected at 6%.
This is a developing news story and will be updated soon.
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