A woman wearing a protective face mask crosses the road in front of the Bank of England for a morning rush hour on March 17, 2020 in the city of London. The UK’s financial district is unusually quiet following a government request for people to stay away from all but essential travel and activities yesterday.
Jonathan Perugia
The UK’s central bank kept interest rates stable on Thursday as the UK enters a new period of national lockdown measures expected of the country’s economic recovery.
In addition to maintaining its key lending rate at 0.1%, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Bank of England (BOE) also voted to increase its asset purchase target stock to 5 895 billion.
Last month, when the BOE asked British banks about their readiness for negative interest rates, they revealed in September that they were exploring the possibility of taking them below zero if necessary.
Since the coronavirus epidemic began in March, the bank has twice reduced the rate from 0.75% to 0.1%.
According to figures released last month by the Office for National Statistics, the British economy grew 2.1% in August, facing an unprecedented 19.8% contraction in the second quarter during the height of nationwide lockdown measures.
The BOE on Thursday forecast that 2021 GDP (Gross Domestic Product) will grow by 7.25%, improving from the expected + 9% at its August Gust meeting. However, in 2022, GDP will grow by .2.5% in Gust, as against the% ..% seen in August Gust.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government has announced a new lockdown, which is taking place in England from Thursday to December 2. On Wednesday, the U.K. 19, while 25,177 new cases were confirmed.
The government has also extended its furlough scheme to support side workers, while the BOE now expects unemployment to reach 7.7575% in the second quarter of 2021.
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