MPC votes to hold BoE base rate

by Aaron Strutt

Jan 10 2014

The Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee has kept the base rate on hold at 0.5% and maintained its programme of quantitative easing at £375bn.

Dr Howard Archer, chief European and UK economist at IHS Global Insight, told the BBC that: “With unemployment currently falling sharply, and growth in 2013 now likely to have come in close to 2.0%, expectations are mounting that the Bank of England could very well start to raise interest rates in 2014.”

The European Central Bank (ECB) also kept its benchmark rate at a record low of 0.25%. In November, the ECB lowered its rate from 0.5% because of the continuing economic weakness in some of its member states.

January 10, 2014