Members of the monetary policy committee voted by a majority of seven to two to keep rates at 5.25% today, where they have been since August 2023. This is the sixth consecutive meeting at which rates have been held. The committee said it was not yet convinced that consumer price index (CPI) inflation was coming down sufficiently to cut rates, but it did not rule out starting to do so in the summer. The last time UK interest rates were at 5.25% was in February 2008, after which they were slashed during the global financial crisis, reaching a historic low of 0.1% in March 2020 in response to the Covid pandemic. The Bank has been gradually increasing rates again since December 2021 in an attempt to curb soaring inflation, which spiked in the wake of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, hitting a 40-year high of 11.1% in October that year. The Bank’s latest decision comes ahead of Friday’s release of first-quarter 2024 GDP figures by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which are expected to confirm that the UK has emerged from recession. The UK economy entered a technical recession after two consecutive quarters of contraction in late 2023, with GDP shrinking by 0.1% between July and September and by 0.3% between October and December. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), which provides independent economic forecasts for the government, predicted on 6 March that UK GDP will grow by 0.8% in 2024, up from 0.1% in 2023, and by 1.9% in 2025. The Bank’s next meeting is on 20 June. Read More: Bolsas europeias mistas à espera do Banco de Inglaterra (Portuguese version)