BBC News | Business Diary | December 21-27


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Monday, December 7, 1998 Published at 15:58 GMT

Business: Business Diary

December 21-27

Company results in italic
Interim (half-year) results = (I)
Final (full year results) = (F)

Dec 21

UK Balance of Payments (Q3)
UK National Accounts (Q3)
UK Public Sector Accounts (Q3)
UK Consumer Confidence (Dec) GfK/EU

Dec 22

UK Overseas Travel & Tourism (Oct)
EU European Central Bank Council meets

Dec 23

UK UK Trade (world: Oct, non-EU (goods only): Nov)
UK Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (Nov)
UK Minutes of Monetary Policy Meeting of 9 and 10 December
US GDP (Final) Q3
US Corporate Profits (Final) Q3
US Durable Orders (Nov)

Dec 24

US Personal Income & Expenditure (Nov)

Dec 25

Christmas Day

All Government and Bank of England figures are released at 0930.

German and Japanese figures expected this week:

GER Consumer Prices (Nov)

GER Producer Prices (Nov)

JAP Trade Balance (Nov)

The Balance of Payments figures for Q3 are released on Monday: the most recent balance (for Q2) showed a surplus of Ł600m, and the new statistics will be examined for any depreciation emerging in trade and services.

Also published on Monday are the National Accounts for Q3: these include the second revision of growth figures for Q3 1998, at present estimated to be 2.3% up on Q3 1997, but only 0.4% higher than Q2 1998. However, we may not be slowing down as rapidly as some people fear, since last month's Consumer Confidence figures suggested that consumers may be likely to spend rather more in 1999 than had been expected.

The European Central Bank Council meets for the final time on Wednesday before the launch of the euro on 1 January.

On Wednesday there will be more detail of the UK trading situation with the publication of the latest UK Trade figures (which include 2 months not covered in the Q3 Balance of Payments data).

Wednesday also sees the publication of the minutes of the Monetary Policy Meeting of 9 and 10 December. The contents will make interesting reading whether or not the Bank has cut interest rates again.