The Bank of England has announced it will pump a further £50bn into the UK economy over the next four months through its quantitative easing (QE) programme to try and boost demand.
QE is the Bank’s scheme which aims to boost the economy by buying bonds. The stimulus currently stands at £325bn.
The Bank also said it would leave UK interest rates unchanged at 0.5%.
The Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has held rates at their current record low for more than three years.
The Bank said that the UK economy, which is back in recession, had “barely grown for a year and a half”. It added that growth in export markets had also slowed.
The additional stimulus had been expected following last month’s MPC meeting, when four of the nine members voted to increase QE.
Since then, the UK economy has shown no real signs of recovery.
Last month, the Bank announced two new stimulus measures. The first of these will provide banks with access to tens of billions of pounds of cheap credit on the basis that they lend this on to businesses.
The second provides banks with access to cash, should they encounter any short-term funding difficulties.
