UK economy is picking up pace, NIESR predicts

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's economy probably gathered pace in the second quarter of 2018 and will quicken again over the coming months, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), a think tank, said on Tuesday.

Gross domestic product was likely to have expanded at a quarterly rate of 0.4 percent in the April-June period, compared with growth of 0.2 percent in the first quarter of the year, NIESR said.

It said it expected to see growth of 0.5 percent in the third quarter, above the consensus in a Reuters poll of economists that pointed to growth of 0.3 percent.

"The economy is showing clear signs of recovering from the unexpected slowdown in the first quarter," Amit Kara, head of UK macroeconomic forecasting at NIESR, said.

"Taking the business surveys together, we believe that this recovery will be most noticeable in manufacturing and construction where output should start to increase once more."

(Reporting by Andy Bruce; Editing by William Schomberg)