Faster economic expansion on the way

Despite the technical recession during the second half of last year, the outlook is for faster economic expansion this year, with the consensus GDP growth forecast currently at 1.6%. We expect growth to be ahead of the consensus, fuelled by the continued expansion of industrial production, which in turn should feed through to rising employee compensation and should lend support to the stabilising consumer trend. Our expectation of continued industrial recovery is based on a number of factors: the low level of inventories; the likelihood that export growth will feed through to production; t...