BRITAIN will stick firmly to a barrage of austerity measures, finance minister George Osborne has insisted in a budget that also slashes economic growth forecasts, while offering plans to boost the weak economy as the eurozone crisis reignites.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Osborne, who is facing calls from within his own Conservative party to reduce deep cuts to state spending in a bid to fuel growth, told parliament Britain "must hold to the right track."
"We are slowly but surely fixing our country's economic problems," Osborne said, as he unveiled a series of measure aimed at boosting growth, including far-reaching infrastructure projects, while insisting Britain was set to escape a new recession.
"We have now cut the (inherited) deficit, not by a quarter but by a third," the chancellor said as he outlined his tax and spending plans for 2013-14.
"Despite the progress we have made there is much more to do and today I am going to level with people... It is taking longer than anyone hoped, but we must hold to the right track."
Osborne was referring to his so-called Plan A - backed by Prime Minister David Cameron - to drive down a record budget deficit inherited from the previous Labour administration in 2010.
Osborne's insistence on driving down state borrowing comes despite the chancellor announcing that the government was halving its economic growth forecast for 2013.
Gross domestic product (GDP) was expected to grow by just 0.6 per cent this year compared with a previous forecast of 1.2 per cent, according to estimates issued by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) on Wednesday.
Economic growth guidance for 2014 was also cut to 1.8 per cent from the previous estimate of 2.0 per cent that was given in December.
The OBR meanwhile hiked its forecasts for government borrowing, stating it would stand at STG108 billion ($A158.38 billion) in the year to April 2014 from a previous estimate of STG99.3 billion.
Osborne said that the problems in eurozone member Cyprus, where savers are threatened with helping to fund an international bailout, "are further evidence that the crisis is not over and the situation remains very worrying".
He said Britain was on course to avoid sinking into its third recession since the 2008 global financial crisis, despite its economy contracting 0.3 per cent in the final three months of 2012.
And in a boost to the construction industry, he added that infrastructure plans would be backed by STG3.0 billion a year from 2015-2016 - to ensure that the "economic arteries of every part of this country" could benefit.
Meanwhile, the level at which workers would begin to pay income tax was set to rise to STG10,000 from next year.
The opposition Labour party was in no mood to applaud these advances, however, while tens of thousands of civil servants were Wednesday holding a 24-hour strike in a row over pay and other working conditions.
"Under this government, the bad news doesn't stop," Labour leader Ed Miliband told MPs in his response to the budget.
"Wait for tomorrow, the chancellor says, and I will be vindicated. But with this chancellor, tomorrow never comes ... it's a downgraded budget from a downgraded chancellor."
Moody's cut Britain's cherished triple-A rating last month.
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
Britain sticks to austerity path in budget
Dengan url
http://tikusinternet.blogspot.com/2013/03/britain-sticks-to-austerity-path-in.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
Britain sticks to austerity path in budget
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
Britain sticks to austerity path in budget
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar