The Bank of England, the UK’s central bank, has announced it will raise interest rates to their highest in more than 13 years and indicated it believes the economy is already in recession.
The Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has raised rates from 1.75 to 2.25 percent—the highest since November 2008—in an effort to control inflation, which currently stands at 9.9 percent.
The committee said the “tight labour with wage growth and domestic inflation” above targets called for a “forceful response.”
But the hike was less drastic than the 0.75 percentage points announced by the U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday.
The bank also voted unanimously to reduce quantitative easing by £80 billion ($90 billion) over the next 12 months to £758 billion ($855 billion)….