Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Mr Gordon Brown has predicted that the British economy would weather the world economic slowdown better than most economists had forecast.
Mr Brown, delivering his pre-budget report to the British parliament, said he believed that economic growth this year would come in at 2.25 per cent compared with his forecast in his budget last March of 2.25 per cent to 2.75 per cent.
Mr Brown told MPs he was "cautiously optimistic" about the outlook for Britain as a result of the tough decisions Labour took after coming to power in 1997.
At the same tine, however he acknowledged that there were "real risks" both for Britain and the world economy following the "traumatic" events of September 11th.
He said the task of his pre-budget report was to set out how Britian would rise to the challenges of the world economic situation, with the US officially in recession and forecasters predicting a global growth downturn.
"No one country can insulate itself from such a synchronised slowdown," he said.
In the past during global slowdowns, Britain has come off worst, he said.
But the Bank of England has taken pre-emptive action during this slowdown with seven interest rate cuts this year.
Among the measures announced by Mr Brown was the abolition of the football pools tax altogether from April 1st, 2002.
PA