FILE PHOTO – The Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, speaks at the Bank of England conference ‘Independence 20 Years On’ at the Fishmonger’s Hall in London, Britain September 29, 2017. REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde
November 5, 2017
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s economy will grow more slowly in the short term if the country fails to secure a deal for its future trading relationship with the European Union after Brexit, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said on Sunday.
Asked in an interview with ITV television if Britain’s economy would take a hit if there is no Brexit deal, Carney said: “The short answer is yes, in the short term…
“In the short term, without question, if we have materially less access (to the EU) than we have now, this economy is going to need to reorient and during that period of time it will weigh on growth.”
Carney also said British business investment should be booming, given the strength of the world economy and other factors, but it was only just growing because of the uncertainty about the outcome of the Brexit negotiations.
The BoE on Thursday raised interest rates for the first time since 2007, before the start of the global financial crisis, but sterling fell sharply as the central bank also said it expected only “very gradual” rate rises ahead.
(Reporting by William Schomberg and Andrew MacAskill; editing by Mark Heinrich)
