Now we’re on a roll
Feb 9 2008 by Adrian Pearson, The Journal
ECONOMIC experts have given the North East an outstanding bill of health and predicted a positive future.
A detailed look at four years of figures and statistics have convinced business forecasters that the region can outstrip economic targets set in 2003.
With unemployment falling and growth exceeding expectations, the Centre for Economics and Business Research has backed predictions that the region’s economy can grow by 2.8% for each of the next 13 years. Overall growth in the North East has been sporadic with city areas in Tyne and Wear often out performing many parts of Durham and Northumberland.
Northumberland was rated one the most volatile parts of the region, with growth of 14.1% in 2002 dropping for the three years following.
But the high and lows of the region’s economy are, overall balancing out – leaving the North East as one of fastest growing areas in the UK.
Phil Jones, planning manager at the Assembly, said: “The North East economy appears to have undergone a structural shift in recent years, which has enabled it to move towards the sectors of finance and business services, and away from the traditional dependence on manufacturing and the public sector. The economic growth of the region has meant a substantial increase in the number of jobs, which has led to rapid improvements in both the economic activity rate and the unemployment rate.”
Dave Ledger, chair of the Assembly’s development board, said the report showed how the region was outperforming even the most optimistic predictions.
“It illustrates that the recent performance of the North East economy has improved further than we had originally planned for in preparing the RSS.
“The analysis confirms that the region has come close to achieving ‘catch-up’ with the United Kingdom after many years of relative under performance and we have been able to surpass 2.8% annual growth in recent years.”
His belief in the strength of the economy was backed up by the development agency One NorthEast.
A One NorthEast spokesman said: “This report is further evidence of the growing strength of the North East economy, which continues to outperform the UK average in key areas.
“For the past five years our business stock has grown at a rate faster than the UK average, while the North East has seen employment grow at the third highest rate in the UK and unemployment fall faster than anywhere else in the country over the past 12 months.”
