{"id":8822,"date":"2024-08-24T11:49:40","date_gmt":"2024-08-24T11:49:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/coronavirus-uk-economy-hit-by-worst-contraction-in-41-years\/"},"modified":"2024-08-24T11:49:40","modified_gmt":"2024-08-24T11:49:40","slug":"coronavirus-uk-economy-hit-by-worst-contraction-in-41-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/coronavirus-uk-economy-hit-by-worst-contraction-in-41-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Coronavirus: UK economy hit by worst contraction in 41 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In a speech on Tuesday, Mr Johnson promised an &#8220;infrastructure revolution&#8221;, arguing the government needed to &#8220;work fast&#8221; to support jobs whilst also seeking to &#8220;level up&#8221; the economy so that all parts of the country can benefit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He said the government would introduce &#8220;the most radical reforms of our planning system since the end of the Second World War&#8221; to speed up building and infrastructure projects where, he argued, the UK compares unfavourably with other European countries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">As part of what he called a &#8220;new deal&#8221;, the prime minister set out plans to accelerate \u00a35bn of spending on infrastructure projects.   <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Meanwhile, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ons.gov.uk\/economy\/nationalaccounts\/balanceofpayments\/bulletins\/balanceofpayments\/januarytomarch2020\" class=\"ssrcss-f6h2dj-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">separate ONS data on the nation&#8217;s finances<span class=\"visually-hidden ssrcss-1f39n02-VisuallyHidden e16en2lz0\">, <!-- -->external<\/span><\/a> showed that Britain&#8217;s current account deficit widened by more than expected in the first quarter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The balance of payments deficit &#8211; the difference between the value of the goods and services that a country imports and the goods and services it exports &#8211; rose to \u00a321.1bn, or 3.8% of GDP.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">This means the UK is reliant on inflows of cash from abroad and leaves the pound vulnerable, according to Mr Tombs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Sterling almost certainly would depreciate sharply again if a major second wave of Covid-19 emerges or if the UK and EU fail to either sign a trade deal or to extend the transition period before the end of this year,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-53231851?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=KARANGA\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a speech on Tuesday, Mr Johnson promised an &#8220;infrastructure revolution&#8221;, arguing the government needed to &#8220;work fast&#8221; to support jobs whilst also seeking to &#8220;level up&#8221; the economy so that all parts of the country can benefit. He said the government would introduce &#8220;the most radical reforms of our planning system since the end [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8823,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[4666,69,540,129,250,380],"class_list":["post-8822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-global-trade","tag-contraction","tag-coronavirus","tag-economy","tag-hit","tag-worst","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8822"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8824,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8822\/revisions\/8824"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}