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Overall Demand For U.K. Goods Remains Weak: CBI Survey

(RTTNews) - Overseas demand for U.K. made goods continued to recover, but overall demand remained weak, a monthly Industrial Trends Survey from the Confederation of British Industry showed on Thursday.

Around 14% of manufacturers said total order books remained above normal, while 51% said they were below normal. The resulting balance of negative 37% was broadly unchanged from the previous two months.

Nearly 22% of respondents said export orders were above normal and 40% said they were below normal. The resulting negative 18% was an improvement on the previous month's figure of negative 23%.

Looking forward, only a modest rise in production is expected in the next three months. At the same time, price expectations reached the highest since September 2008.

Ian McCafferty, CBI Chief Economic Adviser said, "Our survey shows that UK exports orders are steadily improving as global demand is starting to recover. Home-grown demand remains very weak, however, and as a result we can expect manufacturing output to grow only modestly for some time."

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