UK manufacturing shrinks in January

UK manufacturing shrank more than economists forecast in January and posted the biggest quarterly drop in at least four decades as the recession throttled demand for British goods from cars to machinery.

Factory production dropped 2.9 percent from December, the Office for National Statistics said yesterday in London. Economists predicted 1.4 percent, the median of 18 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey shows. Manufacturing shrank 6.4 percent in the three months through January, the most since records began in 1968.

The global slump is ravaging British manufacturing, forcing ministers from Gordon Brown's government to meet carmakers today to discuss a rescue plan. French industrial production plunged in January by the most in at least 19 years and German exports fell for a fourth month, separate reports showed today.