UK Economy Puts Recession Behind it but Price Pressures Rise, PMI survey shows

• Britain's economy kept up its early 2024 momentum with a survey showing strong growth for services firms and business optimism at a two-year high, but inflation pressures are likely to keep the Bank of England wary about cutting borrowing costs.
• Adding to signs that Britain's shallow recession of last year is likely to be short-lived, the preliminary February S&P Global/CIPS UK Composite Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI), which spans services and manufacturing firms, rose to 53.3, the highest in nine months, from January's 52.9. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast no change from January's reading.
• There were potential areas for concern for the BoE in the survey including strong growth in wages among services firms and Red Sea tensions hitting factory supplies, pushing a measure of price increases by businesses to its highest since July.
• Among services firms, the PMI's headline measure held at 54.3. Manufacturing remained below the no-growth threshold of 50.0 but edged up to 47.1 from 47.0 in January. Chris Williamson, S&P Global Market Intelligence's Chief Business Economist, said the survey pointed to the economy growing by 0.2% or 0.3% in the first three months of 2024 after contracting in the third and fourth quarters of last year.
• That is likely to be a relief for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak who has had to endure taunts of "Rishi's recession" from the opposition Labour Party which is riding high in opinion polls ahead of a national election expected later this year.
• Williamson said the pick-up was being led by demand for financial services amid expectations of imminent rate cuts while manufacturing activity continued to contract and consumer-facing services firms were still battling cost-of-living pressures.

(Source: Reuters)