U.K. economy returned to growth in August after contracting for the first time in six months in July, keeping intact financial market bets that the Bank of England will begin raising interest rates before the end of the year. Gross domestic product grew by 0.4 percent in August, a shade under market expectations in a Reuters poll of economists, after it was revised down to show a drop of 0.1 percent in July when staff absences linked to the Delta variant of COVID-19 peaked. “The economy picked up in August as bars, restaurants and festivals benefited from the first full month without COVID-19 restrictions in England,” said Darren Morgan, director of economic statistics at the Office for National Statistics. Financial markets were little changed after the data, which showed a mixed picture on the impact of supply chain difficulties that have pushed up inflation and hurt growth. The Bank of England, facing a jump in inflation, looks set to be the first major central bank to raise interest rates since the start of the pandemic. Investors are betting on a rise to 0.25 percent by the end of December, up from its all-time low of 0.1 percent. After the latest official data, Britain’s economy is now within 0.8 percent of its pre-pandemic size, a much smaller gap than when the last monthly figures were released thanks to upward revisions to output growth earlier in the year. U.K. economy shrank by 9.7 percent in 2020, its joint-biggest drop in 300 years and matching the annual decline in 1921, when the economy was still reeling from the cost of World War One. (SD-Agencies) | 