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| UK sterling has hit yet another 7-year versus the common currency today, at 1.3685. |
UK sterling has hit yet another 7-year versus the common currency today, at 1.3685, its strongest since December 21st 2007. The pound has risen, because UK economic growth for 2014 was confirmed at +2.7% today, the most since the financial crisis, while European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi yesterday warned that the Eurozone’s monetary union is structurally incomplete.
Sterling continues to rise, first because it was confirmed this morning that the UK economy grew +2.7% last year, according to the Office for National Statistics. This was Britain’s fastest annual growth rate since the 2008 financial crash, and so bodes well for the UK’s economic trajectory, thereby lifting sterling.
At the same time, the euro remains on the back foot, because yesterday president of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi told the European Parliament that “We have not yet reached the stage of a genuine monetary union.” Mr. Draghi emphasised that, unless the 19 members of the currency bloc agree to share further economic sovereignty, this “puts at risk the long-term success of the monetary union.”
Equally, European Central Bank executive Luc Coene also brought the future of the euro into doubt yesterday, by telling Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf that "If a country decided to leave, why shouldn't it be allowed to happen? I can't imagine what country that would be, but theoretically that can always happen." This also brought the euro low.
