UK Public Sector Net Borrowing Below Forecasts
Wednesday 22nd January 2020 – 09:33 (GMT)
Figures just released by Britain’s Office of National Statistics have indicated that public sector net borrowing in the UK increased to £4.4B over December 2019. This beat the market expectation of £4.6B and was only a slight increase on the previous months reading of £4.12B.
The British government has run a budget deficit in most months in recent years, though post-crisis austerity policies have caused its gross debt to fall from a peak above £2.3B (or 146% of GDP) in 2010 to less than £1.8B (85%) by the end of the last financial year in March 2019.
The pound remained flat on the back of the news and markets will now focus to see if the trend in government spending will continue ahead of March 2020’s year-end figures.