UK to escape triple-dip recession:NIESR

The UK will narrowly escape a triple-dip recession with economic growth for Q1 forecast to be 0.1%, acccording to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research(NIESR).

However, although the group predicted the UK is growing again, following a 0.3% decline in Q4 2012, it admitted "the economy [was] broadly flat in the first quarter of this year". It expects growth of just 0.7% for 2013, which is slightly ahead of the Office for Budget Responsibility's forecast of 0.6%. NIESR said it still believes the UK economy will take seven years to recover from the impact of the financial crisis: "We do not expect output to pass its peak in early 2008 until 2015." The UK's growth figure for Q1 was supported by strong manufacturing data for February. Output gr...