The Bank of England said Wednesday that Britain's economic outlook may be brighter than expected.
In the minutes of a monetary-setting meeting released Wednesday, the bank's policy-making body, the Monetary Policy Committee, said: "The surveys suggested that the momentum going into the second half of the year was greater than the committee had expected in May and the near-term inflation outlook may be a little higher."
The MPC also said that "little evidence had emerged since May to change the committee's views about the broad shape of the prospects for the economy in the medium term, although the downside risks to GDP in the near term had probably diminished."
The British economy contracted by a massive 2.4 percent in the first quarter of 2009 and the International Monetary Fund has predicted in its latest forecast that the UK economy would decline 4.2 percent this year.