Forecast for 2023: Britain is poised to overtake Europe
Britain wants to leave Europe behind
Britain’s finance minister unveiled a growth plan for the UK economy on Friday, pledging to take advantage of post-Brexit opportunities and keep fighting inflation a priority.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (C) and Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt prepare to unveil a ‘Powered by Leveling Up’ sign during a visit to Accrington Market on January 19, 2023. Leveling Up is one of Britain’s key projects. the government intends to fight against regional disparities.
Christopher Furlong/POOL/AFP
Criticizing the “decline” in the UK that is on the brink of recession, Jeremy Hunt has unveiled a long-term strategy focused on green energy, biotech, infrastructure, digital or creative industries.
In recent weeks, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has brushed aside calls from his Conservative camp for tax cuts for the next budget, said that in the context of rising prices and the crisis in the cost of living, “the best tax cut is a reduction in inflation”.
Inflation in the UK hit 10.5% last month, close to a multi-decade peak, but has started to ease slightly in two months.
In September and October, Liz Truss’s short-lived government published a budget of massive tax cuts and a huge energy bailout, which rattled markets and forced the Bank of England to intervene.
This misnamed “mini-budget” increased the government’s borrowing costs, which have not yet fully fallen, and raised the cost of Britain’s debt.
The real economy is also feeling the pinch with rising mortgage rates.
“Most Competitive”
However, the minister promises that in the longer term, his ambition is to provide the UK with “the most competitive tax regime among the major countries”.
In a speech at Bloomberg’s London headquarters on Friday, the minister assured that since 2010, the UK’s economic activity has grown faster than Italy, France or Japan and that “after the Brexit referendum, our growth is about the same as Germany.”
Mr Hunt said the country was already in recession when he presented his latest budget in mid-November, based on forecasts from the government body OBR.
UK GDP was slightly better than expected in November, showing modest growth for the second straight month, but fell by 0.3% in the three months to the end of November compared with the previous three, according to official statistics.
In November, the OECD predicted that the UK would experience the worst economic performance of the rich G7 countries over the next two years amid rapid inflation and labor shortages.
On Friday, Mr Hunt admitted that the UK had “not returned to pre-pandemic levels of employment or output” and called for a “more positive attitude to risk”.
“We must make Brexit a catalyst for bold choices,” he said.
The government is hoping to reform the European Solvency II directive, which regulates insurance and is due to come into effect within months, “to attract £100 billion of additional investment in the most productive British assets of this decade, such as clean energy.” or infrastructure”.
This speech comes after a series of criticisms from the business community.
Billionaire James Dyson, the founder of the eponymous group, called the economic strategy “foolish” and “myopic” and Marks and Spencer boss Archie Norman accused the investigation of taking “stunning” and “extremely heavy-handed” measures. UK-EU trade dispute in Northern Ireland.
On Monday, CBI chief Tony Danker said the country was lagging behind in green growth, there were barriers to the movement of skilled European workers and he regretted that many legacy EU rules would be abandoned by the end of the year.
AFP
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