06/05/2004

UK interest rates rise by 0.25%

The Bank of England has raised interest rates by a quarter percentage point to 4.25% in an attempt to curb the British public’s spending boom.

The increase, the third quarter-point rise the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has made in the past seven months, will leave homeowners repaying £15 a month more on a £100,000 mortgage.

Many analysts now believe that the cost of borrowing could rise to 5% by the end of the year.

Recent figures have shown that consumers are still borrowing and spending heavily. Net mortgage lending rose by £9.34 billion in March, while there was also a £963 million increase in borrowing by credit card, leaving consumers collectively owing £54.03 billion on "drastic plastic" lending alone.

House prices are also still rising steadily. The Halifax, the UK’s biggest mortgage lender, recently reported that house prices rose by 1.8% in April, with prices up 19.1% on last year.

UK inflation, which currently stands at 1.1%, is widely expected to rise above the Treasury’s 2% target over the next two years.

The only area of concern for the Committee was the state of UK manufacturing, after the first quarter GDP figures were weaker than expected, following poor industrial output numbers.

The Committee’s latest inflation and output projections will appear in the ‘Inflation report,’ which will be published on May 12.

The minutes of the MPC meeting will be published at 9.30am on May 19.

(KmcA)

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