The Bank of England has kept UK interest rates unchanged at 0.5% as expected.
The bank's rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee also said today it was not expanding its stimulus programme beyond the £75 billion sterling of asset purchases announced in October.
The bank has already acknowledged that it will take until February to administer the recent expansion in its QE programme. Economists expect a further £50 billion of QE from the Bank of England in both the first and second quarters of 2012, taking the total up to £375 billion.
While the Bank's monetary policy committee was forced to sit on its hands today, counterparts in the European Central Bank cut euro zone rates from 1.25% to 1%.
Even in the last financial crisis, the ECB's rate never went below 1%, where it stood for two years until April this year.
The crisis in the euro zone - which the Bank of England cited as one of the key threats to the UK recovery - continues to escalate as EU leaders are yet to deliver a concrete plan to resolve the region's problems.
The latest snapshot of the UK economy has made for gloomy reading, with influential think-tank NIESR estimating that growth slowed again in the three months to November to 0.3%, from 0.4% in the three months to October.
And official figures yesterday showed a larger-than-expected 0.7% contraction in industrial production and manufacturing in October, further fuelling fears of a double-dip recession.
It followed warnings from Bank of England Governor Mervyn King that the UK faces a "systemic crisis" and that banks should brace themselves for a potential eurozone collapse amid fears of a second credit crunch.
Holding interest rates will be welcomed by borrowers, but the extended period of lower lending costs spells more misery for pensioners and savers, who will continue to suffer low returns on their money at a time when high inflation is eroding the value of their deposits.
