Bank of England continues to hold interest rates at 0.5%

08 April 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 13th consecutive month and chose not to inject more money into the economy through its quantitative easing policy.

In November, the bank raised its asset purchase programme total by £25bn (€28.4bn, $37.8bn) 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 = €0.75, €1 = £0.88)

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By: Franco Capaldo
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