UK on track for triple dip - NIESR

Britain is on track for a triple-dip recession, one of the nation's leading forecasters has signalled, as new figures on the UK's manufacturing industry dealt a blow to recovery hopes and sent sterling crashing to a fresh two-and-a-half year low.

The economy shrank by 0.1% in the three months to February, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) estimated, which followed a 0.3% decline in the final quarter of last year, the Telegraph reports. If the economy continues to contract for the three months to the end of March, the UK will officially be in its third recession since the financial crisis of 2008. NIESR's monthly GDP estimate was a slight improvement on the three months to January, which showed the economy declined by 0.2%, but it said the data suggested "the economy continued to flat-line in the fi...