(Source: Evening Standard)

By Simon English, Evening Standard, London
Nov. 6--Further evidence that Britain's worst recession since the Second
World War is over emerged today, with upbeat figures issued by the OECD.
The Paris-based economics forum said that its "leading indicators" -- a
collection of data it uses in order to measure performance -- show that the
British economy improved for the eighth month running in September.
The latest official UK GDP numbers showed that, officially anyway,
Britain is still mired in recession.
Economists have since argued that these figures were a blip and that
growth is highly likely to return in the fourth quarter of this year.
The OECD said that the leading indicators rose by 1.7 points in the UK,
and there is also growth in Italy, France and China. The recovery is already
clearly visible in the US, says the OECD.
Howard Archer at Global Insight said: "We strongly suspect that the
economy will return to growth in the fourth quarter, as consumer spending is
lifted by the car scrappage scheme and some consumption being brought forward
ahead of January's value-added tax hike."
Meanwhile, producer input prices rose by 2.6 percent in October, as
manufacturers were forced to pay higher prices for oil and IT equipment.
The rise was much higher than economists anticipated.
Factory gate inflation also picked up, but here the rise was no more than
expected.
Producer output prices rose 1.7 percent on the year in October, up from
0.4 percent in September and the highest reading since March.
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