United Kingdom: Economic activity records quickest growth since June in November
GDP expanded 0.3% month-on-month in seasonally adjusted terms in November (October: -0.3% mom). November’s figure marked the best reading since June and was above market expectations. On a rolling quarterly basis, GDP fell 0.2% in September–November, matching August–October’s fall.
The improvement was largely driven by rebounds in the services and manufacturing sectors.
Our Consensus is for GDP to have flatlined over Q4 as a whole, following Q3’s contraction and Q2’s stagnation. This would bring growth over 2023 as a whole to just 0.4%, which would be the second-weakest performance in the G7.
On the latest GDP data, Berenberg analysts said:
“The back-and-forth oscillating pattern in October and November is consistent with the experience of the past two years. Output has barely risen since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, which disrupted global gas and food markets. The huge external supply shock, combined with the growing demand headwind from the Bank of England’s (BoE’s) aggressive policy tightening to curb the ensuing inflation, have held growth at near-zero since early 2022. Real GDP in November 2023 was just 0.6% higher than in February 2022. That is well below the long-run potential growth of c1.5% annually.”