MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Bank of England unanimously leaves interest rates at 0.5% for the 71st month
The so-called “hawks” Ian McCafferty and Martin Weale had previously voted for a 0.25% rise in interest rates at each meeting of the MPC since last August Bank of England has held interest rates at 0.5% for the 71st month in a row and kept its stimulus programme of quantitative easing (QE) unchanged. Most forecasters now think interest rates will not rise before next year.
Last month, the Office of National Statistics said the UK economy grew by a slower-than-expected 0.5% in the last three months of 2014. Low oil prices and falling inflation in the UK have also removed any pressure on the Bank to raise interest rates.
The meeting of the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) in January saw all members of the Committee vote to hold interest rates at their current level.
So-called interest rate “hawks” Ian McCafferty and Martin Weale had previously voted for a 0.25% rise in interest rates at each meeting of the MPC since August last year.
March's MPC meeting will mark the sixth anniversary of the decision to cut interest rates to 0.5%.
If interest rates remain unchanged at the March meeting, it will mark the fourth longest period of time without a change since the founding of the Bank of England in 1694.
Howard Archer, chief UK economist at at IHS Global, said a rate rise later this year was still likely.
He said: “The Bank of England has stressed the importance of looking through recent and likely further near-term very weak inflation developments resulting from sharply reduced oil prices and focusing on the medium-term inflation outlook, which suggests an interest rate hike late on in 2015 remains a very real possibility.”
In November, the Bank forecast inflation would average 1% in the first three months of 2015, rising to 1.4% in the fourth quarter of 2015 and 1.8% by late 2016. But since those forecasts, oil prices have fallen further and governor Mark Carney has said price growth is likely to turn negative in the coming months.
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Read all commentsOh! poor Britons nothing grows in Ukistan not even interests rate...
Feb 10th, 2015 - 07:04 am 0Poor people if things go so badly as its goes the new children born the first words they will say will be “austerity and Kamoron” instead of Daddy and Mummy.
It is not so sad?
Britain once the Queen of the seas, a wealthy nation and the dominant commerce power in the world now reduced to a shitty 3er world nation debating over if they will become a province of Germany or little Island without any future in the middle of nowhere.
Ah! the Yanks, new world order, the Bilderberg group, etc how have changed the world...
I can imagine the future economic charts listing countries GDPs with name of Briatin below Paraguay and Bolivia.
I just wonder how could be ruined a nation like this????
Dany, you can issue all the stupid comments you like but we know your warped and twisted views are light years from reality. After all, its free speech here. One can only presume tbey stem from burning envy and schaldenfreud or whatever you call it. One also hopes that our continuing Anglo wealth and success continues to rankle and rile you for the rest of your miserable existence.
Feb 10th, 2015 - 10:36 am 0Chuckle chuckle..
# 1
Feb 10th, 2015 - 01:21 pm 0What the hell is your point other than a long rambling anti-British rant?
Despite your pathetic gloom saying the fact is that the UK is growing faster than most similarly advanced economies (including your precious Germany).
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