U.K. business investment set to remain very weak in the near-term, says BoE's Cunliffe

Bank of England (BoE) Deputy Governor Jon Cunliffe in a speech at the Greater Birmingham Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday said that business investment in the United Kingdom is set to remain very weak in the near term in the backdrop of the "Brexit", before picking up again.

February Inflation report, released last week showed that survey indicators of investment intentions that remain subdued amid elevated uncertainty. Expected weakness in business investment was consistent with the assessment in the February Inflation report. Cunliffe said that he considered the risks to the BoE's latest outlook for the British economy to be evenly balanced between the possibility of growth coming in stronger or weaker than forecast.

In an interview to the BBC on Wednesday, Cunliffe warned against moves to dilute the banking rules introduced after the global financial crisis, which have come under fresh scrutiny following Donald Trump U.S. presidential election win. Cunliffe said it was too early to say what the outcome of the reform proposals in the United States would be.

"We've made very substantial progress since the financial crisis, increasing the resilience of the financial sector and increasing its ability to support the economy in times of stress both nationally and ...globally," Reuters quotes Cunliffe as saying to the BBC in an interview on Wednesday.