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The downturn - a question of when not if?

8 May 2018

As long as growth continues into the second half of year - which is highly likely - we'll be the tenth year of economic recovery.

The question on everyone's lips and fear in their hearts is when will the real downturn start in earnest - when, not if. Britain's factories suffered an unexpected drop in output during February, marking the first fall for nearly a year and fuelling fears of a slowdown in the wider economy. Now the Office for National Statistics ONS said that manufacturing output dropped 0.2 month on month in February, while a downward revision to previous data showed it also stagnated in January. Official figures also revealed another sharp deep in the construction sector, marking the largest annual fall since March 2013. These worrying figures fuelled suspicion that GDP growth likely showed to 0.3 quarter-on-quarter in the first quarter and that the downturn is around the corner.