London, April 07: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Tuesday set May 6 as the date for a parliamentary election.
Here are some key facts about Britain:
Economy:
· Britain’s economy came out of an 18-month recession in the fourth quarter of last year, growing by 0.4 percent, official data showed on March 30. The government expects the economy to grow by 1 to 1.5 percent this year. — The Bank of England has kept interest rates at a record low of 0.5 percent since March last year when it also started an unprecedented programme of pumping money into the economy, known as quantitative easing. Some 200 billion pounds ($305 billion) of newly-created money was put in before the scheme was paused in February.
· The budget deficit is expected at 163 billion pounds, 11.1 percent of GDP, this fiscal year, slightly narrower than the record 166.5 billion pounds predicted for 2009/10.
Country Details:
POPULATION: The estimated resident population of the United Kingdom was 61,383,000 in mid-2008, up by 408,000 on the previous year.
RELIGION: Mainly Church of England and Church of Scotland. A 2001 census recorded seven out of ten people as Christian (72 per cent), although many of them are not regular church goers.
After Christianity, Islam is the most common faith with nearly three per cent describing their religion as Muslim (1.6 million). The next largest religious groups were Hindus (559,000), followed by Sikhs (336,000), Jews (267,000) and Buddhists (152,000).
LANGUAGE: English is the dominant language, spoken by 95 percent of the population. Welsh is spoken by around 850,000 people.
GEOGRAPHY: The total area of the United Kingdom is 242,533 sq km (93,640 sq miles), comprising England: 130,478 sq km (50,350 sq miles), Wales to the west at 20,766 sq km (8,016 sq miles), Scotland to the north at 77,167 sq km (29,790 sq miles) and Northern Ireland at 14,122 sq km (5,452 sq miles). Britain’s only land boundary is with the Republic of Ireland. Coasts are on the North Sea, the Irish Sea, the English Channel and the Atlantic Ocean.
–Reuters