Falling investment and poor productivity threaten Britain's long-term economic growth and competitiveness in the new global economy.

The index reflects the broader trend of productivity growth in the U.S. economy that has driven prices lower on goods while allowing prices for services to rise modestly,

Our productivity growth has not been that great over the past few years. Now we've got this investment appetite and that could really start moving us up productivity-wise. The downside is you don't need as many jobs in the sector as you did before.

Foreign direct investment is so important to the growth of China's economy that the national government doesn't want to do anything to endanger that.

With strong investment growth and an expected improvement in exports, our forecast for the economy overall is that annual GDP growth will pick up modestly during 2006 to about 3.25 pct.

Providing great schooling is the single most important thing we can do to help any child from a disadvantaged background succeed. It's also the single most important thing we can do to boost the long-term productivity of our economy.