Brown says new economic cycle has begun

LONDON (Reuters) - The economy has begun a new economic cycle, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Thursday.

"We've just come through a long economic cycle that most people think lasted from 1997 to 2007. During that cycle we met both our fiscal rules," he told a news conference.

"We're now in a new economic cycle, most economists agree that that is the case."

The timing of the economic cycle is important in determining whether the government has met its self-imposed fiscal rules.

The "golden rule" states that the government can borrow only to invest over the economic cycle while the "sustainable investment rule" limits public sector net debt to a "stable and prudent level". In the last cycle, this was defined as 40 percent of gross domestic product.

In the March Budget, the Treasury said national accounts data implied output passed through trend in the second half of 2006 but it was still "too soon" to assess whether or not the economic cycle had ended.

(Editing by David Christian-Edwards)