Bank of England's Fisher warns UK recovery will take time

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's economy may take longer to recover than that of the United States, Bank of England policymaker Paul Fisher was quoted as saying on Wednesday.

"At the moment the macroeconomic outlook here is not as bright as in the U.S., therefore we are some way behind them in terms of return to anything like trend growth, and so the question (of exit from monetary stimulus) will come to us a bit later," he was quoted as saying by The Times newspaper.

Fisher, a member of the British central bank's rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee, said recent market gyrations showed investors had belatedly realised that a U.S. recovery may be likely but the UK was still one or two years behind.

Signs the Federal Reserve may begin to ease back on monetary stimulus as the economy improves have rattled markets in recent weeks, as the Fed's aggressive bond-buying plan has been a major driver of the rally in global risk assets.

Britain's economy has essentially flatlined for most of the last two years, narrowly avoiding an unprecedented triple-dip recession, and is expected to eke out tepid growth at best through next year.

Fisher is among the minority of MPC members who have voted since February for the central bank to buy more bonds with newly-minted money to aid the economy's recovery.

Fisher also said it may require a two-year programme to sell part-nationalised Royal Bank of Scotland but it was not impossible to achieve. Outgoing Bank Governor Mervyn King has suggested the part-nationalised bank should be broken into two.

(Reporting by Li-mei Hoang; Editing by Catherine Evans)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bank-englands-fisher-warns-uk-recovery-time-070636167.html

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