UK economic sentiment dips in April
Economic sentiment in the UK deteriorated in April, according to a survey released by the European Commission on Monday.
The EC's economic sentiment indicator for the UK slipped to 99.3 this month from 100.8 in March.
Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said the decision to delay the UK's departure from the European Union by six months has done little to revive confidence among business or consumers.
"Indeed, confidence among manufacturers and construction firms fell in April to 39 and 21 month lows, respectively. Nonetheless, sentiment among retailers and services firms has recovered, and our re-weighted version of the ESI’s business components - where the weights correspond to each sector’s share of GDP - edged up in April and is consistent on past form with year-over-year growth in GDP of about 1.5%.
"In addition, the confidence indicator for consumers - essentially, a seasonally-adjusted version of the GfK index, released tomorrow - increased to -11.1, from -11.7 in March. While households still have gloomy expectations for the performance of the overall economy, they remain slightly more upbeat than usual about the outlook for their personal finances."