The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is expected to release economic data for the second quarter of this year on Friday, with GROSS domestic product (GDP) expected to plunge 21 percent, pushing the UK economy into its worst ever recession.

It will be the first time since the 2008 financial crisis that Britain has officially declared a recession, the Guardian reported Tuesday. Both America and the euro area have previously confirmed recessions. Britain's economy suffered the biggest quarterly decline among the Group of Seven leading economies, largely because it was late to start and end "lockdowns".

After the coVID-19 outbreak, UK GDP fell by 2.2% in the first quarter of this year. Two consecutive quarters of shrinking GDP is usually considered a technical recession.

Before the outbreak, the UK economy was already struggling to grow, largely because of uncertainty over Brexit and the drag on business investment and consumer spending from last December's parliamentary elections.

The move comes as the British government tries to strike a balance between easing city closures and stimulating economic growth, the Guardian reported. After four months of strict epidemic prevention and control, more and more enterprises are under financial pressure and job losses are becoming increasingly serious.

Gary Young, deputy director of the NATIONAL Institute for Economic and Social Research, said it would probably take until the second half of 2023 for Britain's GDP to rise back to its level at the end of 2019.

Sanjay Raja, an economist at Deutsche Bank, said there were "substantial downside risks" to the UK economy, including more local "city closures", slower external growth, brexit uncertainty and rising unemployment.