UK Pumps £150bn More Into Battered Economy

The Bank of England on Thursday unveiled an extra £150 billion in cash stimulus and forecast a deeper coronavirus-induced recession for the UK as England begins a second lockdown.

The central bank, which held its benchmark interest rate at a record-low 0.1 percent, lifted its quantitative easing (QE) stimulus by the equivalent of US$195 billion as it seeks to boost lending by retail banks and consequently economic growth.

The bank's monetary policy committee voted "for the Bank of England to increase the target stock of purchased UK government bonds by an additional £150 billion, financed by the issuance of central bank reserves," it said in a statement.

Thursday's announcement took the central bank's total QE coronavirus stimulus to £895 billion.

The bank has now pumped out £450 billion under its QE programme since March, when Covid-19 prompted Britain's first coronavirus lockdown.

Prior to this it had pumped hundreds of billions of pounds into the UK economy over the past decade in the wake of the 2008-09 global financial crisis and Brexit.

Thursday's decisions come as England begins a minimum four weeks of stay-at-home restrictions, as the UK government seeks to stem a second wave of Covid-19 after similar actions elsewhere in Europe.

The initial lockdown that lasted around three months until mid-June sparked Britain's deepest recession on record.

"Since the committee's previous meeting (in September), there has been a rapid rise in rates of Covid infection," the Bank of England said in a statement announcing the outcome of Wednesday's regular policy meeting.

"The outlook for the economy remains unusually uncertain," it said.

"It depends on the evolution of the pandemic and measures taken to protect public health, as well as the nature of, and transition to, the new trading arrangements between the European Union and the United Kingdom" post Brexit.

"It also depends on the responses of households, businesses and financial markets to these developments," the bank added.

It forecast the economy would shrink by 11 percent this year, worse than prior guidance of a 9.5 percent contraction.

GDP was then set to rebound by 7.25 percent next year, but this was down from the 9 percent increase given previously.

Under QE, the Bank of England creates cash that is then used to purchase assets such as government and corporate bonds, with the aim of boosting lending and stimulating economic activity. The bank first embarked upon what was at the time a very unusual policy measure in the wake of the global financial crisis. (AFP)