OECD says growth continues to 'firm' in UK The OECD's composite leading indicator (CLI) for the UK, which has a track record of predicting economic trends six months in advance, continued to suggest growth was "firming," the Paris-based think-tank said on Monday. Emerging economies continued to lag behind, with the OECD reporting only a "tentative positive change in momentum" in China, the world's second largest economy. Growth was "around trend" in Brazil and Russia, and below trend in India. The OECD data came as analysts at JP Morgan predicted that Bank of England policymakers would likely "de-emphasise the role of the unemployment rate" in the face of rapidly falling jobless figures, less than a year after Governor Mark Carney introduced its flagship "forward guidance" policy. In a note on Monday, economists at JP Morgan said UK unemployment would fall below the 7pc threshold needed to unlock a rate rise "before midyear." However, JP Morgan said UK rate-setters were unlikely to tighten policy immediately, and would instead "test the limits of the growth/inflation trade-off" to elicit a supplyside response. "For the MPC, members are likely to want to give above-trend growth time to produce a recovery in productivity," the note said. Bruce Kasman, an economist at JP Morgan, said Bank policymakers could instead move to a Swedish-style model of issuing forecasts that reflected their own interest rate predictions. "That would allow the MPC to signal the policy path it has in mind without being unconditionally committed to it," said Mr Kasman, who predicted that the Bank would tweak forward guidance - introduced last August - as early as May.