Rates held at 0.5%

THE Bank of England has held rates for the ninth successive month.

It also chose to leave its £200bn money printing scheme – known as quantitative easing – unchanged after increasing it by £25bn last month.

Quantitative easing (QE) aims to stimulate the economy by printing money and using it to buy bonds from financial institutions.

With the economy still in recession many economists believe QE will trigger a recovery. But it has its detractors who fear it is stoking future inflation.

In November the Bank said the latest tranche of QE cash would take three months to work through the system. It has made purchases of £188bn since the policy was first announced in March.

Chris Fletcher, deputy chief executive of Greater Manchester Chamber, said: “We believe this was the right decision. Businesses need stability at the moment so there was no demand for a change in interest rates. Yesterday’s Pre-Budget Report had already given businesses enough to deal with and they didn’t need any change in interest rates or quantitative easing.”