London: Britain’s pound climbed to its highest levels against the dollar since mid-September yesterday, as data showing UK factory activity growth recovered from a seven-month low in July eased concerns about an economic slowdown.
The Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) survey for Britain’s manufacturing sector climbed to 55.1, exceeding the 54.4 consensus in a Reuters poll of economists, helped by the biggest influx of new export orders since 2010.
The numbers should hearten policymakers at the Bank of England, which will make a policy decision and release its latest quarterly Inflation Report on Thursday, and should soothe investors’ fears that economic growth is deteriorating rapidly after a sluggish start to the year.
A run of weak data has - along with deep uncertainty about the impact of Brexit on the economy - cooled speculation that the BoE is poised to start removing its crisis-level stimulus, which followed a series of hawkish remarks by policymakers at the banks in recent months.
