Trade deficit, services slowdown hit British economy

Britain seems losing growth stream as the latest official data shows the economy faced a sharp decline in the first quarter of 2015.

According to the data released by the Office for National Statistics, ONS, the country halved its growth rate with gross domestic product expanded by just 0.3% in the first three months of this year.

The figure indicates a sharp slowdown compared with 0.6 percent in the last quarter of 2014. Some analysts say the decline means an increase in private and public debt levels and hence lesser to spend on consumption.

I'm unsure if the government's continued reliance on QE and other centralized measures is pure ignorance of how the economy works or a deliberate act to allow the economy to fail so the global elite can buy assets after the crash at a cheaper price. The real economy is being forgotten - 97% of new money is created by private banks & they seek easy profit! Only 10% of all new money created is going into commerce and the real economy, Ivor Kellock, a London-based finance & wealth management expert told Press TV.

Kellock said that the above scenario has no effect on the real world or real economy except creating a profit, effectively sucking money out of the real economy.

The ONS has also confirmed that the overall economic growth last year was at 2.8% but says that the rate was the best among the group of seven developed economies or G7.

Trade deficit and services slowdown have been cited as the reasons for the sluggish growth. According to ONS estimates, services slowed to 0.4 percent, down from the prior figure of 0.5 percent. That‘s its worst performance since late 2012.

This is the second official estimate on GDP this year showing a huge blow to Chancellor of Exchequer, George Osborne and his Conservative party which now controls the House of Commons. This also as the economy was a central theme of the General Election campaign this year.

“Tories have stated that there will be more cuts to public services that would certainly affect the poorest and most vulnerable in our society. This is an ideological decision that is proven not to bring economic benefits but only support political goals i.e. making the elite stronger and the rest weaker”, Kellock concluded.

A treasury spokesman says the ONS figure has nothing to do with the future prospect. "Today's figures confirm that the UK was the fastest growing major European economy over the past year”, he said. But, that’s not the case with analysts who believe that the government needs to come up with a thorough plan to secure a better economic future.

MA/SKL