The United Kingdom's annual growth rate will drop to around 2% in the second half of 2001, the Bank of England projected, even as unemployment data showed the number of jobless Britons fell far more than expected in January 2001. In its first quarterly inflation report of 2001, the central bank's Monetary Policy Committee forecast on Feb. 14 that the annual growth rate will fall because of "deterioration in global prospects, slowing consumption and continued weakness in investment growth."

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