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Living in economic way: the Britain under new policy

19 December 2010 02:16 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Angela Ahrendts, the London-based famous brand Burberry’s CEO, was excited to see its luxury goods’ profits jumped to a new high this year, APA reports quoting Xinhua News Agency.

Wearing black suits and glasses with the narrowest of metal rims, the blond looks like the actress in the movie of The Devil Wears Prada. Angela has reason to smile. She told Xinhua that the fashion group beat forecasts with a 49 percent rise in pre-tax profits to 129 million pound.

2010 was a bumper harvest year for Burberry, but not for most British, including the royal family, policemen on foot patrol, and babies sleeping in the cradles. Affected by the British government ’s economic austerity policies, they all tried their best to live in small way.

The British economy has come out of recession in 2010, but the record finance deficit since the World War II set every British a stiff question. The deficit for this calendar year was at 11 percent of GDP or 157.4 billion pound, far over the EU’s ceiling of 3 percent.

In May, the Labor government had been struck down by the inflated debt, which gave an impressive lesson to the coalition government. The new government set their full fire to the deficit, and the Chancellor George Osborne outlined a massive 83 billion pound cuts across all government departments and spending, the largest in Europe over four years.

The new budget includes increased VAT, frozen public sector pay and children benefit, cut housing benefit and so on. As the result, British households, on average, will be about 400 pound a year worse off, Budget documents suggest, with the poorest 10 percent losing 200 pound and the richest 1,800 pound, although the poorest will be hit harder than most as a percentage of their income.

In fact, both rich and poor, no one was immune. Increased housing, food and leisure costs in Britain have contributed to the higher cost of living. Britain’s retail sales suffered a surprise fall in 2010, and the High Street could see worse decline, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said. The property market also made analysts desperate. Contrary to everyone’s expectation, prices started falling in the summer and have kept on going much every month since then.

Hard times weaken people’s interest in eating and dressing. More and more British people have to do cooking by hands, though they have tattered reputation in the kitchen. The latest inflation figures revealed that food prices - notably for vegetables, bread and meat - were going up, experts expected that the trend might continue. The average British household only spends 10 percent of its income on food, so the effect of rising prices on consumers is manageable. However, those on low incomes, who spend a greater proportion of income on food, would be the hardest hit.

Families also cut their spending on shoes and clothes as the inflation started to bite. As commodities prices soared this year, the cost of clothes went up with the cotton price. The fashion chain Next warned clothing prices would go up 8 percent in the first quarter and increases could top 10 percent by the spring.

Angela Ahrendts rejected to make comment on the Next’s price policy. As a luxury brand, Burberry’s mainstream customers are non- price-sensitive buyers. What’s more, even the British domestic market remains as cold as London’s winter, Angela could enjoy her business in sunshine markets such as China and Brazil.