Recession to last more than a year

By Jonathan Cable

LONDON (Reuters) - The recession is likely to last more than a year as growth falls off a cliff despite the Bank of England continuing to hack away at interest rates as inflation comes down, according to a Reuters poll.

The monthly poll, conducted Nov 14-20, found 16 out of 27 economists predicting it would last more than a year, seven said it would last between six months and a year and only three said it would last less than six months.

"We now expect a more prolonged recession lasting through most of 2009, followed by a gradual recovery in 2010 as a result of lower inflation, lower interest rates, some fiscal stimulus and a gradual global recovery," said John Hawksworth, head of macroeconomics at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The British economy is expected to have expanded just 0.8 percent this year and is seen contracting 1.3 percent in 2009, well below the 1.0 percent growth and 0.2 percent contraction forecast respectively last month, the poll found.

This represents the 10th consecutive month the median 2009 forecast has been downgraded.

This is way down from the healthy 3.0 percent growth seen in 2007 but forecasts were relatively wide, ranging between 0.4 and 1.0 percent growth for this year and between 0.2 to 2.5 percent contraction for 2009.

Data released last month showed the British economy shrank 0.5 percent in the third quarter, the first decline in 16 years, after stagnating in the second quarter. Recent data suggests the UK is now in recession, usually defined as two consecutive quarters of contraction.

Economists predicted Britain would see five quarters of contraction in a row, with growth not predicted until the last quarter of 2009.