The British economy should recover half a year earlier

The British economy should return to pre-pandemic levels of the new coronavirus in the middle of next year. That would be six months earlier than previously thought. This was stated on Wednesday by Finance Minister Rishi Sunak at the opening of the budget debate. Nevertheless, the island's economy will still be 3% smaller in five years than it could have been without the damage caused by the pandemic, he said. Sunak also released forecasts from the Office of Budgetary Responsibility (OBR), which predicts that the UK's gross domestic product (GDP) will grow by 4% this year after falling by 10% last year. This will be a weaker result than the original estimate of its growth of 5.5% last November. Looking to the future, OBR assumes that GDP will increase by 7.3% in 2022 and its growth will slow in the following years, to 1.7% in 2023 and 1.6% in 2024. The previous November OBR forecast projected GDP growth of 6.6% in 2022, 2.3% next year and 1.7% in 2024. Sunak has vowed to do "everything that will be needed", including extending a job-saving plan by five months to get the economy through hopefully the last months of pandemic restrictions. Sunak has already raised Britain's debt to its highest level since World War II as part of spending on stimulus, and according to excerpts from its speech, which were published on Tuesday (March 2), the fixation of public finances will begin only after the economic recovery is in sight.