Bank of England injects another 50 bln pounds into economy

Britain's central bank also said it would hold the interest rates unchanged at a historic low of 0.5 percent.

    The move will raise the bank's quantitative-easing (QE) program from 125 billion pounds (212 billion dollars) to 175 billion pounds (297 billion dollars).

    This is beyond the British Treasury's permission of 150 billion pounds (255 billion dollars), which means Mervyn King, Governor of the bank, will need approval from the Treasury for the expansion.

    The decision is beyond expectations of economists, some of whom had forecast that the bank would halt the expansion of the QE program as "green shoots" have begun to emerge in the British economy.

    The bank said in a statement that the recession "appears to have been deeper than previously thought."

    The bank's monetary policy committee "expects the announced program to take another three months to complete," the statement said. It added that the "scale of the program will be kept under review", Kazinform cites Xinhua. See www.chinaview.cn for full version.