"We're pretty certain to see a minor positive [GDP] number in the first quarter and so are going to avoid a technical recession"
- Brian Hilliard, an economist at Societe Generale SA
The U.K. gross domestic product fell 0.2 per cent in the fourth quarter, after expanding by 0.6 per cent in the previous three months, the Office for National Statistics said on Friday.
"It's a pretty poor number," said Ross Walker, economist at RBS. "The main positive is that improvements [in survey data] that look increasingly broad-based have not been captured, and we will get a bounce back in the first quarter."
"We're pretty certain to see a minor positive number in the first quarter and so are going to avoid a technical recession, but the basic story is one of essentially zero growth through to the summer," said Brian Hilliard, an economist at Societe Generale SA in London and a former Bank of England official.
"We do need to see a turnaround in investment before we can start to turn a little more optimistic."
© Dukascopy Bank