The HSBC's economist last spoke to the NFU Conference four years ago when predictions for recovery had been rosier with higher prices and a more favourable exchange rate. He apologised to delegates if he had told them at that time that the global economy was going to improve.
"It is fair to say that things have not improved in the global economy as was hoped. The really big picture is that we still live in a really discombobulated and confused world. It is not as we hoped it would be."
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He said that the accepted wisdom was that world was still reeling from the fallout of the financial crisis of 2008, but as time went on it has become more apparent that we are dealing with the effects of more deep seated underlying issues, such as savings gluts, too much debt In other areas, ageing populations, low inflation rates and reduced capital expenditure.
Mr Berrisford-Smith said he didn't know why market forecasters were so surprised that the Chinese markets were slowing because its stock market lacked sophistication and was dominated by retail investors, who traditionally cut and run at the first sign of trouble.
He said that in this country we sometimes focus too much on the downturn in China, whilst ignoring the fact that our recovery was going quite well and we have almost full employment.
China's economy was always going to slow because three decades of double-digit growth was unsustainable. He expected that they will continue to import commodities over the next year but just not as much as we have been used to.
He said that this year will be tricky for the global economy but things should look up for Britain towards the end of the year and the HSBC's best guess for the next interest rate rise is November, because nothing was going to move before the referendum.
He predicts a 'rollercoaster ride' for the pound if we vote to leave the EU, but if we vote to stay then the pound will rally.
"Don't listen to the naysayers and the doomsters – it [the economy] is does grow, it just doesn't grow as fast as we are used to and it doesn't grow as fast as we thought it would. So the best way to describe it is a state of semi-slumber, where it has been for about five years," he added.
He finished by saying that we are in danger of spending so much time trying to fix the previous recession that we get hit by the next one before we've done the job.