Howard Archer February Quotations

This subdued growth is expected to help to contain underlying inflationary pressures and risks, underpinning our belief that interest rates will be cut by a further 25 basis points in February or March.

Flat export orders in February are particularly disappointing.

The February CBI survey reinforces our belief that consumer spending will be unable to sustain the relatively strong performance seen in the fourth quarter of 2005.

Robust service sector activity in February makes it even more of a cast-iron certainty that the Bank of England will keep interest rates unchanged next Thursday.

This is still a pretty benign report overall and broadly in line with Bank of England expectations contained in the February Inflation Report.

While the February mortgage lending and approval data are relatively healthy, there are hints that housing market activity could be starting to lose momentum after several months of improvement.