UK business investment in the third quarter of this year was 10 per cent below what it was in the second quarter of 2016 when the country voted to leave the EU, new figures show.
A graph in the Financial Times has been making the rounds on social media after it was revealed that investment “fell off a cliff” in mid-2016, and has failed to recover since.
It is down 10 per cent on the second quarter of 2016, while over the same period, business investment grew by 8 per cent in the eurozone and by nearly 20 per cent in the US.
Andrew Goodwin of Oxford Economics said high Brexit-related uncertainty remains a major factor in determining economic activity in the UK.
Tensions over Northern Ireland’s border also remains a big issue, Gabriella Dickens, economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics noted.
The UK and the European Union have said they will step up efforts to reach an agreement on the Northern Ireland Protocol before Christmas after negotiators failed to find consensus once again.
After another week in the laboured talks on solving the issues thrown up by the Brexit border deal, Lord Frost said he and European Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic had still not reached agreement.
The Brexit minister said “intensive talks” would continue next week. He and his opposite number will double how often they meet “in the hope of making worthwhile progress towards agreed solutions before Christmas”.
Lord Frost had previously said he did not want protocol negotiations to continue beyond December.
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