LONDON (Nov 2): British finance minister Philip Hammond will announce only a modest fiscal stimulus in the first post-Brexit vote budget statement later this month but will allow for more aggressive spending in future if needed, the Financial Times reported. The newspaper said Hammond told fellow ministers on Tuesday to expect extra infrastructure spending in the "low billions" of pounds in his Nov. 23 Autumn Statement. Hammond has previously said that he was prepared to give the economy support if needed to offset the effects of Brexit-related uncertainty. He has also scrapped the plan of his predecessor George Osborne to turn Britain's budget deficit into a surplus by 2020. A spokeswoman for the finance ministry declined to comment on the report.

Source: The Edge Markets November 01, 2016 23:44 UTC