The UK is now in recession for the first time since 1991, official government figures have confirmed. Gross domestic product fell by 1.5% in the last three months of 2008 after a 0.6% drop in the previous quarter. That means that the widely accepted definition of a recession - two consecutive quarters of falling economic growth - has been met.

It represents the biggest quarter-on-quarter decline since 1980, and a 1.8% fall on the same quarter a year ago. The worse-than-expected contraction sent sterling to a 24-year low against the dollar, with one pound buying $1.355. Meanwhile the FTSE 100 index fell almost 2%, below 4,000 points.

While this data had been widely predicted, it is still very nad news for both the UK and the pound. What started as a crisis in the financial sector continues to infect the wider economy.
Unemployment is accelerating sharply, with 1.92 million people now out of work, the housing market remains severely depressed and retail sales are weak.

Log in on Monday to see next weeks data releases, and how this might affect exchange rates.

This is a brief summary of todays report. Click here to read the full report on our main website

If you are buying a property abroad, and want the best exchange rates, just click on the links below to go straight to our main site, or Click Here to Send me an Email

GBP Sterling USD Dollar EUR Euro NZD Kiwi AUD Aussie DKK Krona CAD Loonie CHF Swiss ZAR Rand THB Baht HKD Dollar CZK Krona TRY Lira SEK Krona NOK Krona

This entry was posted on Friday, January 23rd, 2009 at 2:34 pm and is filed under Currency Reports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.