Who cares about economic forecasts, which have proven to be about as useful as sticking a pin in a chart, blindfolded? But given their prominence when they foresee the UK economy performing less well than the EU, it provides a little balance to note when it is the other way around. A little over a year ago the OECD, like the IMF, was pessimistic about the UK economy, predicting that it would shrink by 0.4 per cent in 2023, and just about creep back into growth in 2024. ‘UK faces worst downturn of any advanced economy, OECD says’ was how the BBC reported it. The only bright spot was that, unlike the IMF, the OECD thought that Britain wouldn’t do quite as badly as Russia.
And now? There has been somewhat quieter reporting of today’s OECD Economic Outlook, which is predicting that the UK economy will now outgrow the Eurozone in 2024.
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