The Bank of England said Thursday it voted to keep its main interest rate at 0.5 percent against a backdrop of zero inflation in Britain. The central bank's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) maintained its key interest rate at the record-low it has been for 6.5 years, according to minutes of its latest monthly meeting, which was held on Tuesday.
The BoE also left unchanged the level of cash stimulus pumping around the British economy at £375 billion ($575 billion, 509 billion euros). Policymakers "voted by a majority of 8-1 to maintain bank rate at 0.5 percent", the Bank of England said in the minutes. The nine-member MPC was meanwhile unanimous in its decision to keep the stimulus, known as quantitative easing, at the same level.
"Twelve-month CPI inflation was zero in August, well below the (Bank's) two percent target rate," the minutes noted. In a busy day for major central banks, both the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank are to release minutes from their last monetary policy meetings. While both the Fed and BoE are still on course to raise interest rates amid expectations of higher inflation in the United States and Britain, a slowdown in China has put pressure on central bankers to delay any hikes to borrowing costs until 2016 at the earliest.