LONDON (MNI) – Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee member
David Miles has told news agency Bloomberg that the weakness of the
economy vindicates his call for additional asset purchases.
“The weakness of demand, given the amount of spare capacity in the
economy, still made a strategy of having monetary policy even more
expansionary the right one,” Miles said in an interview with the news
agency.
Miles also said that the economy remains very fragile, adding that
he would not be suprised if official data show the country is back in a
technical recession.
“It seems pretty likely that right now, growth in the economy is
pretty weak, probably marginally positive, but pretty weak… It
wouldn’t be a great surprise if the GDP number was a small negative
number,” Miles said.
The minutes of the April MPC meeting showed that Adam Posen pulled
his call for additional asset purchases, leaving Miles alone in calling
for the money printing taps to be turned back on.
Wednesday sees the release of preliminary GDP data for Q1. A Market
News survey of analyst expectations points to a 0.1% outturn.
–London Newsroom: 4420 7862 7492 email: ukeditorial@marketnews.com
[TOPICS: M$$BE$ ]
