Mubasher: The Bank of England (BoE) on Thursday decided to hold its benchmark rate unchanged.

The BoE’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) agreed unanimously on maintaining the main policy rate at 0.75%, with a 9-0 vote.

The MPC also voted unanimously to keep the stock of government bond purchases, financed by the issuance of the central bank reserves, at GBP 435 billion ($542.81 billion).

“Since the MPC’s previous meeting, the trade war between the United States and China has intensified, and the outlook for global growth has weakened,” the MPC noted.

Moreover, the BoE pointed to the dovish trend among the central banks of the world’s major economies.

The consumer price index (CPI), a gauge for the UK’s inflation, slowed down to 1.7% year-on-year last August, its weakest level seen since December 2016.

The BoE expected the inflation rate to remain slightly below the 2% target in the short-term.

Moreover, the labour market continued to appear tight, as the jobless rate continuing to remain just lower than 4% since the start of the year, the central bank stated.

“Brexit-related developments are making UK economic data more volatile, with GDP falling by 0.2% in 2019 Q2 and now expected to rise by 0.2% in Q3,” the MPC said.

By 11:54 am GMT, the GBP/USD pair ticked down by 0.09% to $1.2461, while the EUR/GBP pair rose by 0.45% to GBP 0.8890.