BoE governor rules out interest rate rises "now"

The governor of Bank of England (BoE) Mark Carney on Tuesday said "now is not yet the time to raise interest rates" due to the gloomy global economy and modest British economic growth since summer.

Carney said that "not enough cumulative progress had been made to warrant tightening monetary policy" in a speech at Queen Mary University of London, as an assessment for last summer when he suggested that a decision as to when to start raising Bank rate would likely come into sharper relief around the turn of the year.

The governor stressed that the outlook for monetary policy depends on three things - the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC)'s objectives, its strategy, and the British economic prospects.

"Our objective is clear: to return inflation to the target in a way that avoids undue volatility in output and employment," he added.

British inflation rate as measured by the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose to an 11-month high of 0.2 percent in December, from November's 0.1 percent, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) released on Tuesday.

Latest minutes from BoE's MPC, which voted 8-1 to keep rates at their current historic low of 0.5 percent, showed that members expect inflation to remain far below its 2 percent target for some time yet. Endit