国际英语资讯:Bank rates to rise sooner than markets expect: Bank of England governor_时事

国际英语资讯:Bank rates to rise sooner than markets expect: Bank of England governor

LONDON, Feb. 8 -- The governor of the Bank of England (BoE) warned on Thursday that interest rates would rise sooner than markets expected.

The warning from governor Mark Carney came as he delivered the quarterly BoE inflation report.

Governor Carney warned markets in a press conference to "expect that in order to return inflation sustainably to target ... it will probably be necessary to raise interest rates ... somewhat earlier and to a somewhat greater extent than we had thought in November."

At the time of the previous inflation report in November Carney had told markets to expect the era of loose monetary policy to be over, as the BoE was considering, in line with the movement's of the U.S. Federal Reserve, to further raise the bank rate.

国际英语资讯:Bank rates to rise sooner than markets expect: Bank of England governor1

The rate had been at an historic low of 0.25 percent, set in August 2016 to counter anticipated headwinds from the Brexit vote, but the bank raised it by 25 basis points in November.

Its forecasts at the time indicated there could be two more increases of 0.25 percent over three years.

The rate had returned to 0.5 percent, a level it had previously held since early 2009. The rate rise was the first increase in the rate since July 2007.

But Carney's language was ramped up on Thursday, and he also said he had the complete support of the nine-member rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee (MPC).

"The MPC has clearly taken a more hawkish stance," Dr Howard Archer, senior economic adviser with EY ITEM, a London-based financial analysis firm, told Xinhua on Thursday.