Bank of England holds interest rates, quantitative easing policy

04 March 2010 12:00  [Source: ICIS news]

LONDON (ICIS news)--The Bank of England held UK base interest rates at 0.5% on Thursday for the 12th consecutive month and left its quantitative easing policy unchanged.

In November, the bank raised its asset purchase programme total by £25bn (€27bn, $38bn) to £200bn and has held it at that level since.

The recession forced the bank's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) into a series of interest rate cuts, which has seen rates fall from 5.5% in October 2008 to the current level, set in March last year.

In January, the UK emerged from its longest recession on record, with GDP provisionally forecast to have grown 0.1% in the fourth quarter of 2009 compared with the previous quarter, after six consecutive quarters of contraction.

The growth figure was later revised to 0.3% by the Office for National Statistics.

($1 = €0.73, €1 = £0.91)

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By: Graeme Paterson
+44 20 8652 3214

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