The Bank of England raised interest rates on Thursday, its 12th consecutive increase, as Britain’s inflation rate remained stubbornly in the double digits.
Policymakers lifted the central bank’s key interest rate a quarter of a percentage point to 4.5 percent, the highest since 2008. The long and aggressive policy tightening has continued as Britain experiences inflation that is higher than in the United States and Western Europe. Consumer prices rose 10.1 percent in March from a year earlier, the latest data showed, as food prices have risen more rapidly than expected, alongside prices of other goods such as clothing.
The rate increase addresses “the risk of more persistent strength in domestic price and wage setting,” according to the minutes of the bank’s meeting this week.
Britain’s inflation rate is expected to fall more slowly than the central bank expected three months ago, primarily because food price inflation is forecast to decline slowly. In March, food prices…
This article was written by Eshe Nelson and originally published on www.nytimes.com