Outlook and appraisal [June 2009]

The recession in the UK economy may be over. The National Institute for Economic and Social Research in London called the end of the recession as occurring in March and is estimating small positive growth in April and May of this year. Due to lack of data the position in Scotland is much less clear. There is a clear danger of a “false dawn”, since it is not unknown for previous UK recessions to have one or two positive quarters of growth before growth turned negative again