Park tops poll for second year

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has raised growth forecasts for all advanced economiesexcepttheukafter weaker-than-expected economic performance resulted in a downgrade earlier this year amid Brexit uncertainty.

In further bad news for Chancellor Philip Hammond ahead of next month’s Budget, Britain’s trade deficit in goods ballooned to a record high in August, signalling no significant benefit to exporters from the Brexit-induced collapse in the pound.

And the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) completed a gloomy picture of the economy by warning that overly optimistic productivity forecasts will slash its outlook for UK growth.

The economic watchdog – whose forecasts form the basis of the Chancellor’s Budget decisions – has admitted it is set to “significantly” lower its predictions for the UK’S productivity growth over the next five years in next month’s forecasts.

In its latest World Economic Outlook, the IMF said it still expects UK growth to drop to 1.7 per cent in 2017 from 1.8 per cent in 2016, and slow even further in 2018 to 1.5 per cent.

The UK was the only major economy that failed to see growth revised higher by the IMF, which cut its 2017 outlook from 2 per cent back in July.

The IMF said the slowdown in growth was driven by a drop in household spending amid the pound’s post-brexit collapse, which has sent inflation up to 2.9 per cent.

“The medium-term growth outlook is highly uncertain and will depend in part on the