The world has embarked on an economic recovery that should accelerate over the coming months, leading central bankers said yesterday. confidence at the global level that growth is picking up and recovery is gaining momentum," Mr Trichet said after the meeting in Bangkok "And we are reasonably confident that this recovery ... The BRC said it was too early to tell whether this was a typical pre-Christmas pause or a sign that the consumer economy was "running out of steam".Bill Moyes, the BRC's director general, said: "Either way, it is strong evidence that the Government and the Bank of England should not press consumers too hard." Almost every sector along the high street suffered a poor month with food and drink and electrical and electronics goods performing especially badly.There was little sign of inflation in the manufacturing sector with prices of goods leaving the factory gate rising just 0.1 per cent for the second month in a row in October.Input prices surged 1.6 per cent on the month, mainly due to soaring oil prices.. This was the lowest rate of growth in more than four years, apart from March this year when they fell during the Iraq war. House prices fell in September while high street spending and factory goods prices have slowed, according to the first batch of figures released since the Bank of England raised interest rates last week. But this was in sharp contrast to the estimates by Nationwide and Halifax that prices rose more than 1 per cent.The figures from the ODPM echoed a survey of estate agents' asking prices by Rightmove, a property website, that said prices dropped 0.6 per cent in September. It said its figures were not seasonally adjusted and the fall might simply reflect a seasonal slowdown in the market.The annual rate slowed to 10.9 per cent, the lowest since the series was started in February last year and down from 22 per centseven months ago.This was in line with figures from the Land Registry showing prices rose 10.6 per cent in the year to September.And retail sales grew by just 0.8 per cent in October, the British Retail Consortium said.

That only one bid was received should have alerted the department to the fact that its project may not have been sufficiently well-designed to attract competition."Despite ICL's poor performance, the department chose to negotiate with the company rather than terminate its contract This was a mistake, says the report. "Risk transfer does not really take place if departments are unwilling to terminate a PFI contract or take legal action when a contractor fails to deliver.". The committee said that competitive procurement was essential but that in the case of Libra all potential bidders bar ICL dropped out in the procurement stage.The report says: "A single bid for a major complex project is seldom likely to achieve value for money. It has failed to deliver the common IT solution for magistrates' courts that is so desperately needed and turned out to be an astonishingly poor deal for the taxpayer."Departments must be willing to terminate PFI contracts or take legal action when contractors fail to deliver."The PAC has criticised many aspects of the PFI over the years but this is the most trenchant criticism it has made of an individual project. Edward Leigh, the chairman of the PAC, said: "The Libra deal is one of the worst PFI projects my committee has seen.

It paid out a 0.75p dividend in the first half.Analysts at Evolution Beeson Gregory, the company's broker, forecast Radstone will make a pre-tax profit of £7.1m this year on sales of £49.5m.. A Government project to install new IT systems in magistrates' courts will be condemned today as "an astonishingly poor deal for the taxpayer" by an influential committee of MPs. The figures, however, benefited from the acquisition of Interactive Circuits and Systems - a Canadian technology firm that it bought at the beginning of September.Excluding the one-month contribution from ICS, Radstone made a pre-tax profit of £696,000 on sales of £17.2m - a fall of 6 per cent from the year before, largely due to the weaker US dollar. Mr Perrin said a combination of factors, including the company's order book and trading at ICS, gave him confidence that Radstone would produce a solid performance this year."Our knowledge of the market and knowing what our customers' requirements are for the second half," Mr Perrin said, was one factor, while another was the performance of ICS."It [the performance of acquisitions] won't be that good every month but, right now, things are looking very positive for the rest of the year from our acquisition."Radstone has £18.5m of orders that are scheduled for delivery in the second half of the year. Radstone Technology, which designs technology for the defence sector, yesterday pointed to a rosy second half after profits rose 74 per cent in the first six months. Jeff Perrin, the managing director, said the company remained confident of a "strong" performance from its main embedded computing business in the second half of the year.The Towcester-based company designs and sells hard-wearing technology that is, for example, fitted in tanks.