The Telegraph, January 22, Roger Bootle
Just as the days start to get ever so slightly longer, is it possible to glimpse the beginnings of a brightening of the economic scene?
Let us not be parochial. The economic travails that we have been passing through here in the UK have been largely global in nature. Accordingly, you could reasonably expect the recovery, when it comes, to have a large global element too.
As it happens, the economic data continues to be decidedly soft in America, where a recession looks on the cards. Yet, over recent weeks, European economic data releases have tended to surprise on the optimistic side.
It has long seemed that France was well positioned to avoid a recession but in the last week the German Chancellor, Herr Scholtz, expressed confidence that Germany would also avoid a recession this year. Given the importance of manufacturing to the German economy and the damage that sky-high energy prices have done to manufacturing, that would be quite something.
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