{"id":5702,"date":"2018-12-21T11:00:21","date_gmt":"2018-12-21T11:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/business-investment-in-worst-run-since-2009\/"},"modified":"2018-12-21T11:00:21","modified_gmt":"2018-12-21T11:00:21","slug":"business-investment-in-worst-run-since-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/business-investment-in-worst-run-since-2009\/","title":{"rendered":"Business investment in worst run since 2009"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\"Money\"Image copyright<\/span>
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Business investment has now declined for three quarters in a row, figures show, its worst run since the economic downturn of 2008 to 2009.<\/p>\n

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said<\/a> investment fell by 1.1% in the July to September period compared with the previous quarter.<\/p>\n

However, separate ONS figures showed government borrowing fell in November.<\/p>\n

Borrowing was \u00a37.2bn last month, down \u00a30.9bn from a year earlier and the lowest November figure for 14 years.<\/p>\n

Business investment comes from both private and public corporations and includes investments in transport, technology and buildings. <\/p>\n

Many major businesses, including Jaguar Land Rover, Nissan, Airbus and BMW, have all warned that Brexit threatens investment levels in UK business operations. <\/p>\n

Earlier this week, a host of British business groups criticised politicians<\/a> for focusing on infighting rather than preparing for Brexit, warning that there is not enough time to prepare for a no-deal scenario.<\/p>\n

Also on Wednesday, the Bank of England cut its UK growth forecast<\/a> and warned a lack of Brexit clarity is hitting the economy.<\/p>\n

The Bank said uncertainty over the UK’s departure from the EU had “intensified considerably” over the past month.<\/p>\n

‘Strangers’<\/h2>\n

In a raft of official releases on Friday, the ONS also issued the latest balance of payments figures. <\/p>\n

The ONS said the current account deficit – the difference between money flowing in and out of the UK – widened to \u00a326.5bn in the third quarter. The figure was worse than expected and compares with a \u00a320bn deficit in the previous three months.<\/p>\n

The governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, has previously warned that this large current account deficit leaves the country dependent on “the kindness of strangers”.<\/p>\n

The ONS also confirmed the UK economy grew by 0.6% in the third quarter from the previous three months, the same as a previous estimate.<\/p>\n

Consumer concerns<\/h2>\n

“The longer-term picture remains subdued and business investment has now fallen for three consecutive quarters,” said ONS statistician Rob Kent-Smith.<\/p>\n

Mr Kent-Smith also noted that households had spent more than they received for an unprecedented eighth quarter in a row, raising questions about their ability to keep on spending and driving the country’s economy.<\/p>\n

Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said consumers rather than business were keeping economic growth alive, but that could not last.<\/p>\n

“The recent deterioration in consumers’ confidence and the pick-up in saving intentions suggests that growth in spending will slow in the near-term, even though real wages should start to rise at a faster rate,” he said. <\/p>\n

“Accordingly, the latest national accounts do not inspire confidence that the economy will pull through the current political crisis unscathed.”<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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Source<\/a> by [author_name]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image copyright Getty Images Business investment has now declined for three quarters in a row, figures show, its worst run since the economic downturn of 2008 to 2009. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said investment fell by 1.1% in the July to September period compared with the previous quarter. However, separate ONS figures showed … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":363,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}