THE Bank of England yesterday steered clear of providing any further monetary stimulus to the UK economy in spite of last month's news that gross domestic product fell 0.3% in the fourth quarter of 2012.
At the end of its latest two-day monthly meeting, the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee held UK base rates at their record low of 0.5% and maintained the scale of quantitative easing at £375 billion. QE is aimed at stimulating activity by boosting money supply through the purchase of Government and corporate bonds using central bank reserves.
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