The Bank of England left monetary policy unchanged today as expected, voting as it did last month not to buy more government bonds and pump money into Britain's stagnant economy.
After a two-day meeting, the Bank of England's nine-member Monetary Policy Committee said its main interest rate would stay at a record-low 0.5%.
It also said it would not add to the £375 billion sterling of bonds it has bought so far.
None of the 66 economists polled by Reuters had expected a change in rates or in the BoE's bond buying total.
The decision comes despite finance minister George Osborne saying yesterday that Britain's economy would grow much more slowly than expected over the next three years and that a key debt reduction goal would not be met.
The forecasts also showed Britain's economy was likely to shrink over the last three months of 2012 - a prospect reinforced by weak trade data earlier today and downbeat purchasing managers' surveys this week.
Last month's decision by the bank not to loosen monetary policy further was driven by an unexpectedly big jump in inflation in October to 2.7%, as well as a government decision to take back gilt interest paid to the bank, which was tantamount to about £35 billion of extra asset purchases.
Consumer price inflation has been above the Bank of England's 2% target since December 2009. Economists are roughly split on whether the bank will restart asset purchases in future.
However, any restart is not expected before February at the earliest, when the Bank of England publishes its next quarterly economic update.
