LONDON, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- Bank of England, Britain's central bank, has decided to keep the benchmark interest rate at the historical low of 0.5 percent and held off from more quantitative easing (QE) programs.
The low interest rate has been kept for over three years by the Monetary Policy Committee under the central bank, while total QE size now stands at 375 billion pounds after a 50-billion-pound expansion was last made in July.
Britain has been in recession for the last three quarters, while there is now expectation that the economy could return to growth in the third quarter this year.
The central bank's latest prediction was the economy could barely grow this year and the OECD last month cut its forecast on Britain's economy to a 0.7-percent contraction from a former forecast of 0.5-percent growth.
Some analysts expect the central bank to expand QE size next month amid the dim economic outlook.
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