Bank of England set to hike rates earlier than expected

By Gokhan Kurtaran

LONDON

The Bank of England (BoE) may raise interest rates earlier than expected, the governor of the bank said Thursday.

Following an unanimous vote in favor of leaving the interest rate at 0.5 percent, Mark Carney said addressing a news conference: "It will likely be necessary to raise interest rates to a limited degree gradually but somewhat earlier and to a somewhat greater extent than what we had thought in November.''

The Bank has also revised U.K.’s e-growth forecast from 1.5 percent to 1.7 percent for this year.

The Monetary Policy Committee minutes released earlier on Thursday said: “Were the economy to evolve broadly in line with the February Inflation Report projections, monetary policy would need to be tightened somewhat earlier and by a somewhat greater extent over the forecast period than anticipated at the time of the November Report, in order to return inflation sustainably to the target.”