Recovery: British economy continues downward spiral

(Press TV) -- Britain's gross domestic product has contracted 0.8 percent in the three months to the end of June, new official figures show.

The new data released Friday by the Office for National Statistics is twice as much as expected in the last quarter.

The data for the last quarter brings the British economic contraction for the whole year to 5.6 percent, which is the country's biggest annual decline since 1955.

The figures show that the British economy is unlikely to recover from its financial and economic crisis with the continuous increase in unemployment rates, the declining real-estate market and a banking system still dependent on government aid.

"We should see some evidence of positive growth in the second half of the year,” Andrew Sentance, a member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee, said Thursday.

"Tying that down to a particular quarter is difficult. There are negative drags, in particular problems in the banking sector," he added.