The UK is on course to outpace the world's major advanced economies this year after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) raised its GDP forecast for a fourth time in a row to 3.2 per cent.
The projection, which is disclosed in the IMF's World Economic Outlook, is better than forecasts that the United States will grow by 1.7 per cent this year, Germany by 1.9 per cent and Canada by 2.2 per cent.
As well as the 0.4 per cent upgrade to its April forecast, the IMF has added 0.2 per cent to its prediction for 2015, when the UK should grow by 2.7 per cent.
Since last year's forecast by the IMF that the UK would grow by just 1.5 per cent in 2014, the recovery has been driven by consumer spending and a tentative rebound in manufacturing.
Chancellor George Osborne said: "Today the IMF has upgraded their 2014 forecast for the UK by more than any other major economy.
"The Government's long term economic plan is working. But the job is not yet done and so we will go on making the assessment of what needs to be done to secure a brighter economic future."
The IMF rounded down growth for the global economy from 3.7 per cent in April to 3.4 per cent today.
IMF director Olivier Blanchard said: "The recovery continues, but it remains a weak recovery."
TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady said: "Pay packets are still falling behind rising prices, so most people are not yet sharing in the recovery.
"If the good news on growth is going to last, real wages must start improving."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article