British central bank continues to keep interest rates at record-low

LONDON, April 8 -- The Bank of England, Britain's central bank, decided Thursday to hold short-term interest rates at their record low and maintained the size of the Asset Purchase Programme at 200 billion pounds.

The Bank of England (BOE) said in a brief statement its Monetary Policy Committee voted to maintain the official Bank Rate paid on commercial bank reserves at 0.5 percent.

The Committee also voted to maintain the stock of asset purchases financed by the issue of central bank reserves at 200 billion pounds.
The decisions come at a time when the British economy is recovering slowly from a deep recession.

The British government reported late last month the economy increased by 0.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009 over the previous quarter, the first increase since the beginning of 2008. However, UK gross domestic product declined by 4.9 percent in the year.

The BOE cut its interest rates to 0.5 percent in March 2009 in an attempt to boost the recession-hit economy.

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