Full name: The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Population: 64 716 000 (estimate 2015)

Capital: London

Largest city: Edinburgh, Cardiff, Belfast

Area: 242 954 km2

Major language: English

Major religion: Christianity

Life expectancy: 77 years (men), 81 years (women)

Currency: Pound sterling (GBP) (symbol: £), £=100 pence (singular: penny)

Trade organizations: European Union (EU), the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), World Trade Organization (WTO)

ECONOMY

GDP $2.945 trillion (Nominal; Sept 2015 USD), $2.548 trillion (PPP; Dec 2014)

GDP rank 5th (Nominal) / 10th (PPP)

GDP growth +0.5% Q3 2015 ONS +2.5% for year 2015 IMF

GDP per capita $46,244 (2015) $39,224 (PPP; April 2015)

GDP by sector: agriculture: 0.6%, construction: 6.4%, production: 14.6%

services: 78.4% (2014)

Inflation (CPI): 0.2% (December 2015)

Population below poverty line: 15% (2014)

Labour force: 31.39 million (November 2015) (Employment rate 74.0%, record high.)

Labour force by occupation: agriculture: 1.5%, industry: 18.8%, services: 79.7%

Unemployment: 5.1%, 1.68 million (October 2015)

Average gross salary: £2,480 /?3,373 / $3,814 monthly (2014) (8th highest)

Average net salary: £1,730 /?2,064 / $2,793 monthly (2014) (6th highest)

Main industries: aerospace, agriculture, automotive, business and professional services, chemicals, construction, consumer goods, defence equipment, education, electronics, energy, entertainment, financial services, food, healthcare, industrial equipment, information technology, media, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, processed metals, real estate, retailing, scientific equipment, telecommunications, tourism, transportation and logistics

 

Exports $503 billion (9th; 2014)

Export goods: manufactured goods, chemicals, food, tobacco, automotive vehicles and components, computer programming, finance, entertainment, clothes, fuel oil and petroleum products, industrial supplies and materials, military arms and equipment, pharmaceuticals

 

Main export partners: Germany 10.8%, United States 10.4%, Netherlands 8.1%, Switzerland 7.2%, France 6.5%, Ireland 6.4%, Belgium 4.5% (2014)

Imports $802 billion (5th; 2014)

Import goods: manufactured goods, machinery, fuels, foodstuffs

Main import partners: Germany 14.9%, China 9%, Netherlands 7.8%, United States 6.5%, France 6.1%, Belgium 5.2% Italy 4.1% (2014)

Inward: $1.321 trillion (2012) (3rd)

Outward: $1.884 trillion (2013) (2nd)

Current account −£59.2 billion (2012)

Gross external debt $ 9,590,995,000,000(2014) (2nd)

Net international investment position £182 billion / 9.1% GDP (2012)

Public debt £1,500.00 billion (October 2015) (80.5% GDP)

Budget deficit £69 billion (2015–2016)

Revenues £672 billion (2015-2016) $1.029 trillion (2015)

Expenses £743 billion (2015–2016) $1.136 trillion (2015)

Economic aid 0.7%, $19.0 billion (2015) (donor)

Foreign reserves $95.54 billion (2012)

 

 

Task 1. Split into small groups. In your small group discuss the information you have read. Ask each other questions, in turn, about the general overview of the economy of Great Britain you were reading about, its GDP, labour force, population below poverty line, inflation and unemployment rate,main industries, exports and imports, external debt, budget. The purpose of these questions is to make sure that everybody in the group fully understands the information that has been read.

Task 2. Say what new information you have read about British economy.

Key terms

1. Study key terms and their definitions before reading Text A & B:

Economic indicator - економічний показник - a statistic used for judging the health of the economy such as GDP per head, rate of unemployment or the rate of inflation.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – внутрішній валовий продукт - the monetary value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country's borders in a specific time period.

Gross National Product (GNP) – національний валовий продукт - the most commonly used measurement of the wealth of a country. GNP is defined as the total value of all goods and services produced by firms owned by the country concerned.

National Income – національний дохід - the total income of the state in one year including both the wages of individuals and the profits of companies. National income is equal to gross national product.

National per capita income – національнийдохід на душу населення – the national income divided by population.

National Income Accounting – підрахування національного доходу –

A term used in economics to refer to the bookkeeping system that a national government uses to measure the level of the country's economic activity in a given time period. National income accounting records the level of activity in accounts such as total revenues earned by domestic corporations, wages paid to foreign and domestic workers, and the amount spent on sales and income taxes by corporations and individuals residing in the country.

Purchasing power parity (PPP) – паритет купівельної спроможності – an economic theory that estimates the amount of adjustment needed on the exchange rate between countries in order for the exchange to be equivalent to each currency's purchasing power.

Labor Market Statistics – статистика ринку праці - key data on the employment market in the UK, such as the net change in employment, unemployment rate, average weekly earnings, labor productivity, and vacancies.

Household Expenditures – витрати домогосподарства - household expenditure measures the contribution of households to economic growth and accounts for about 60% of the expenditure measure of the UK's GDP.

Inflation indicator – показник інфляції - which measure inflation at the consumer and producer levels.

Balance of Payment – платіжний баланс - the report includes detailed information on UK trade in goods and services, income, current and capital transfers, and transactions in UK.

Index of Production – показник виробництва - the ONS provides monthly estimates of the Index of Production for UK production industries, which account for close to 15% of GDP. The Index of Production is one of the earliest indicators of growth and measures output in manufacturing, mining, energy supply, and water supply and waste management industries.

GfK Consumer Confidence – (GfK - Growth from knowledge –market research) – показник довіри споживача - сonsumer confidence in the UK is obtained from the findings of the GfK Consumer Climate Europe survey, which is conducted by research firm GfK in all EU countries on behalf of the European Commission.The GfK Group is an international market research organization providing services in the three sectors Custom Research, Retail, Technology and Media.

Retail Sales – роздрібна продаж - the Office for National Statistics (ONS) releases a monthly report on retail sales activity across the UK, showing changes in sales activity in a given month compared to the previous month and to a year ago.

Construction Spending – витрати на будівництво - an economic indicator that measures the amount of spending towards new construction.

Bank – банк - A financial institution licensed as a receiver of deposits.

National bank – національний банк - is bank controlled by the national government of a country.

Central bank – центральний банк - central bank have a wide range of responsibilities, from overseeing monetary policy to implementing specific goals such as currency stability, low inflation and full employment. Central banks also generally issue currency, function as the bank of the government, regulate the credit system, oversee commercial banks, manage exchange reserves and act as a lender of last resort.

Commercial bank – комерційний банк - commercial banks are mainly concerned with managing withdrawals and deposits as well as supplying short-term loans to individuals and small businesses.

Investment bank – інвестиційний банк - focus on providing services such as underwriting and corporate reorganization to institutional clients.

Currency – валюта, грошова одиниця - the type of money in use in a country (the UK pound sterling)

Technology – технологія - new machines, equipment, ways on doing things that are based on modern knowledge about science and computers

The application of science to commerce and industry

Industry – промисловість – the sector of an economy that is concerned with manufacture

Service – послуги – intangible commodity of value

Service industry – сфера послуг - sector of the economy that supplies such as retailing, banking, education

Construction industry – сфера будівництва – the process of creating and building infrastructure or a facility

Trade – торгівля – the activity of selling goods and services in order to make a profit

Exports – товари, що експортуються - goods and services sold to foreign countries

Imports – товари, що імпортується - а goods or services brought into one country from another.