Britain's BoE raises interest rate to 0.75%

LONDON - Britain's central bank, the Bank of England (BoE), has once again lifted the benchmark interest rate to 0.75 percent in a move to combat the rising inflation, according to a BoE statement on Thursday.

The Bank's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) met on Wednesday and voted by a majority of 8-1 to increase the Bank Rate by 0.25 percentage points, said the statement.

The BoE has raised borrowing costs several times since December to bring down the country's soaring inflation, which reached a 30-year high of 5.5 percent in January.

The committee expected Britain's inflation to grow further in the coming months, to around 8 percent in the second quarter in 2022, and perhaps even higher later this year.

The MPC said the Russia-Ukraine conflict has "led to further large increases in energy and other commodity prices including food prices," read the statement.

"It is also likely to exacerbate global supply chain disruptions, and has increased the uncertainty around the economic outlook significantly," it added.

The MPC believed the increase in Bank Rate of 0.25 percentage points is necessary due to "the current tightness of the labor market, continuing signs of robust domestic cost and price pressures, and the risk that those pressures will persist."

Given the current economic situation in Britain, "some further modest tightening in monetary policy" might be put into place over the coming months, the statement noted.

But it also pointed out that "there are risks on both sides of that judgement depending on how medium-term prospects for inflation evolve."