BANK of England policymakers held back from prescribing further emergency medicine to the economy today despite gloomy signs that the recovery is stalling.
The Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) kept interest rates at their record low of 0.5% and held its quantitative easing (QE) stock at £375n.
The announcement came as official figures revealed the country’s trade deficit - the gap between goods imported and exported - widened markedly.
It also follows George Osborne’s gloomy Autumn Statement, in which the Chancellor extended the age of austerity against a backdrop of weaker growth and a wider deficit.
Combined with weak surveys on the services, manufacturing and construction sectors, economists still expect the Bank to unleash further QE in the new year.
But the economy returned to growth in the third quarter when gross domestic product (GDP) rose 1%, ending the longest double-dip recession since the 1950s.
