This week ahead sees a number of key economic announcements - retail sales for June, GDP figures for Q2 and a Rightmove house price survey released today.

The indications are - at the moment - that UK growth has slowed with house prices rocking to halt - albeit temporarily as inflation remains on the increase and GDP figures forecast to remain 'slow'.

NIESR (The National Institute for Economic and Social Research) forecast three month growth in May as 0.9 pct slowing to 0.7 pct in June - the figure being up slightly from Q1's revised growth of 0.4 pct.

However, with interest rates still a focus, the figures remain a worry as economists are pessimistic on UK's chances of growth with most forecasts in the range of 0.5-0.6 pct, lower than NIESR.

"There is a very real risk that the second quarter will be as good as it gets for the economy for the time being." said IHS Global Insight's Howard Archer.

Vicky Redwood of Capital Economics meanwhile predicts a figure of 0.5 pct.

Retail sales on the other hand are likely to show a strong boost after a surge in food and TV sales around the World Cup meant that BRC figures are showing a growth of 14.4 pct in London alone.

The boost in retail sales however is unlikely to follow-through to consumer confidence which still remains concerned over growing inflation.

Last week, the core rate of inflation - not including food and fuel which are volatile due to varying demands - show that an element of rising inflation remains despite super-low interest rates at 0.5 pct.

This makes this Wednesday's minutes from the Bank of England interest rate meeting more important than anything.

With growing inflation and no way to solve it, the Bank of England are no longer able to 'hide' their concerns over the interest rate meetings which are growing more and more likely towards raising rates to control inflation.

Last month, Andrew Sentence voted 7-1 against holding rates, and this month's vote will establish where the members of the BoE's so-called monetary policy committee stand in light of growing 'unease'.

Ross Walker, leading economist with RBS said that "the rise in the core rate, serves to underline this theme of price stickiness".

"Clearly it's not falling as much as we'd hoped." he added, suggesting that a small interest rate rise sooner rather than later might be preferred.

GDP Bank of England