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The UK Current Account - speech by Ben Broadbent
There has been a sharp, and welcome, bounce in economic activity in the UK. But it has been accompanied by an equally sharp deterioration in the balance of payments. From 1½% of GDP in 2011 the deficit on the current account – the combined balances for trade, asset income and transfers – widened to 4½% of GDP last year. That’s the second-highest annual figure since the Second World War (Chart 1). In particular, it is significantly higher than during any of the innumerable currency crises the UK suffered over the following thirty years or so. Last month, a piece in the Financial Times 1 argued that Britain’s ... (full story)