"If within the next six months there is no prospect of growth..."
- John Longworth, director general of the BCC
The economy of Britain's capital has been outperforming the rest of the nation's economy since 2007, the Office for National Statistics said Wednesday. London's economy expanded by 12.4% between 2007 and 2011, compared to the rate between 2.3% and 6.8% across other U.K.'s regions. The performance of London's labour market has also outperformed other parts of the country. Between the final quarter of 2007 and the final quarter of 2012, capital's employment improved by 0.9%, compared to a 1.7% decline in the rest of the country. During the same period, there were 267,000 new job places created, while in the rest of the U.K. 284,000 work places were eliminated. All this has led to a direct impact on the incomes of residents, with the average household income per head in London increasing 30% above the U.K. average.
John Longworth, director general of the BCC, said: "If within the next six months there is no prospect of growth... you might have to consider actually borrowing more money but you should only do it to fund areas that the market would forgive."
"A dire set of U.K. data," said Ross Walker, an economist at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc in London. It leaves a "decline in first-quarter gross domestic product looking more likely than not."
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