- Monetary Policy Committee minutes
British policymakers moved further away from adding any additional stimulus to the economy in September, minutes of the last policy meeting showed Wednesday. The nine-member Monetary Policy Committee voted univocally to keep the current pace of the stimulus programme and interest rates unchanged, also saying they remain and will stay in wait-and-see mode for the next couple of months. Currently QE stands at 375 billion pounds and the key rate at 0.5%. The logs mean that one of the main reasons for this pause in the U.K. central bank's activity stems from bright news on the domestic economy and neighbouring Eurozone.
Amid signs of economic strengthening the BoE upgraded its growth forecast, saying the nation's GDP will rise 0.7% in the third quarter, up from 0.5% expected in August. As none of nine policy makers saw a case to expand the pace of current stimulus measures, the likelihood that growth will continue gathering pace for the rest of the year is high. Earlier this month, Mark Carney pledged to keep borrowing costs at current level until the unemployment fall to 7% or lower that is not expected to happen until late 2016. However, investors are betting due to solid economic performance it could happen earlier, thus there is a possibility of a rate increase sooner than expected.
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