MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Bank of England increases rate to 0,5% and begins reduction of bond purchases

Global and UK activity returned to their pre-Covid-19 levels towards the end of last year, according to BoE

The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) this week voted by a majority of 5-4 to increase Bank Rate by 0.25 percentage points, to 0.5%. Those members in the minority preferred to increase Bank Rate by 0.5 percentage points, to 0.75%.

Likewise the Committee voted unanimously for the Bank of England to begin to reduce the stock of UK government bond purchases, financed by the issuance of central bank reserves, by ceasing to reinvest maturing assets. The Committee also voted unanimously for the Bank of England to begin to reduce the stock of sterling non-financial investment-grade corporate bond purchases, financed by the issuance of central bank reserves, by ceasing to reinvest maturing assets and by a program of corporate bond sales to be completed no earlier than towards the end of 2023 that should unwind fully the stock of corporate bond purchases.

The Committee’s updated central projections for activity and inflation. The projections are conditioned on a market-implied path for Bank Rate that rises to around 1½% by the middle of 2023. Wholesale energy prices are assumed to follow their respective futures curves for the first six months of the projections and remain constant beyond that, in contrast to futures curves, which are downward sloping over coming years. There are material risks around this assumption.

Global and UK activity returned to their pre-Covid-19 (Covid) levels towards the end of last year. The emergence of the Omicron variant is expected to have depressed activity somewhat in December and January. But its economic impact is likely to be limited and of short duration, and UK GDP is expected to recover in February and March such that output returns to its pre-pandemic level once again by the end of the first quarter. The Labour Force Survey unemployment rate fell to 4.1% in the three months to November, and is expected to fall further in the near term, to 3.8% in 2022 Q1.

Beyond the near term, UK GDP growth is expected to slow to subdued rates. The main reason for that is the adverse impact of higher global energy and tradable goods prices on UK real aggregate income and spending. As a result, the unemployment rate is expected to rise to 5% and excess supply builds to around 1% by the end of the forecast period.

Twelve-month CPI inflation rose from 5.1% in November to 5.4% in December, almost 1 percentage point higher than expected at the time of the November Report. Inflation is expected to increase further in coming months, to close to 6% in February and March, before peaking at around 7¼% in April. This projected peak is around 2 percentage points higher than expected in the November Report. The projected overshoot of inflation relative to the 2% target mainly reflects global energy and tradable goods prices.