BoE's Broadbent says recovery difficult without higher pay, productivity

LONDON: It would be difficult for Britain to have a sustained economic recovery if real rates of pay and productivity do not improve, Bank of England Deputy Governor Ben Broadbent said in an interview on Thursday.

Broadbent told BBC it was "extremely welcome" that a decade-long trend of rising import prices -- which had hurt real rates of pay -- had turned around over the last year.

"What is true is that it's hard to have a sustained recovery in which productivity and real rates of pay don't start to rise," Broadbent said.