Britain.. Inflation continues to rise, and debate over raising central interest rates again | economy

Today Wednesday, official data released by the Office for National Statistics in the United Kingdom showed that the consumer price index, on an annual basis, exceeded the 10% mark for the sixth month in a row, reaching 10.4% last February. 2023 was 10.1% in January.

Economists – polled by Reuters – expected the annual consumer price index (inflation) to contract to 9.9% last February, down from 11.1% recorded in October in 41 years.

The Bank of England is set to announce on Thursday whether it will raise interest rates for the eleventh meeting in a row, as the global banking sector is reeling from the collapse of two regional banks in the US. Credit’s purchase of troubled Swiss bank “UBS” (UBS).

The core consumer price index – which excludes energy, food, alcohol and tobacco and is tracked by the Bank of England – rose to 6.2% from 5.8% in January, better than an expected 5.7% decline.

The annual rate of inflation in the services sector – seen by most monetary policymakers as an important gauge of underlying price pressures in the economy – rose to 6.6% from 6.0% last January.

British finance minister Jeremy Hunt, in press statements last week, forecast inflation to fall to 2.9% by the end of 2023 from 10.7% in the fourth quarter of last year.

He also indicated that he expects the British economy to contract by 0.2% on an annual basis in the first quarter of this year due to expected tensions.

It is worth noting that government measures announced by the British Finance Minister to tackle the cost of living over two years will be worth £94 billion.