Bank of England
May 11, 2015
After the latest monthly monetary policy meeting, which had been delayed a few days, by last Thursday’s election, Bank of England officials decided to keep their policy settings unchanged. April’s decision was by unanimous vote, and probably so was this month’s. This as expected result affirmed a 0.50% Bank Rate, which has been at that level since March 2009, and a GBP asset purchase program, which exhausted that limit 2-1/2 years ago. For insight into the Monetary Policy Committee’s latest inclinations, the quarterly Inflation Report gets published this Wednesday, and minutes of today’s meeting will be published a week later. U.K. CPI inflation was at zero in both February and March. Core inflation at 1.0% is equidistant between the target and zero. Real GDP growth slowed to 0.3% last quarter, weakest since the final quarter of 2012 as construction contracted 1.6% and production dipped 0.1%. Service sector output went up 0.5%, down from a gain of 0.9% in the prior quarter. On-year GDP growth of 2.4% was down from 3.0% in the previous quarter.
Copyright 2015, Larry Greenberg. All rights reserved. No secondary distribution without express permission.
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