London investors will next week focus on critical data highlighting the state of Britain's economy, an issue that has taken centre stage in campaigning ahead of a general election in May. London's benchmark FTSE 100 index fell 0.47 percent over the past week to end at 5,743.96 points on Friday, when it had briefly touched a fresh 22-month high level above 5,800 in morning deals.
Ahead of national elections due on May 6, Britain's Office for National Statistics will next week publish data on British inflation, unemployment, retail sales and public borrowing.
The most significant release is set to be the first official forecast of British gross domestic product for the first three months of the year. "Friday's first estimate of GDP in the first quarter of 2010 is the headlining act in a bumper week of economic data releases," said IHS Global Insight economist Howard Archer. "And the anticipation over the release is heightened by the fact that there is massive uncertainty surrounding the outcome due to the serious hit to economic activity in January coming from the arctic weather conditions."
Thursday's borrowing data will meanwhile reveal the level of Britain's public deficit for the 2009-2010 financial year, which ran to the end of March. The government has forecast that state borrowing will have hit a record 167 billion pounds (189 billion euros, 257 billion dollars) in 2009/2010.
That is equivalent to about 11.8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) - which is on a par with crisis-hit Greece, whose enormous deficit stood at 12.7 percent of GDP in 2009.
The public finances have buckled under the weight of a fierce recession, which ravaged taxation revenues, as well as the series of banking-sector bailouts.
On the corporate front, the country's biggest retailer, supermarket group Tesco, will release annual results on Tuesday. Trading updates are also due from brewer SABMiller, and miners BHP Billiton and Anglo-American.
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