The Bank of England on Thursday kept interest rates steady at five percent, a month after cutting them for the first time since March 2020. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the central bank said in a statement that eight of its nine members voted in favor of the decision to keep rates steady, based on the decline in inflation that stabilized at 2.2 percent last month. The committee reiterated that it will continue to monitor economic indicators before adopting any new interest rate cuts, adding that the decline in inflation will allow it to adopt a cautious and slow interest rate reduction policy in the coming months. It also stressed that it is important to keep inflation at low levels while avoiding rapid or large interest rate cuts in order to avoid any negative effects on economic growth. The Bank of England gradually raised interest rates from 0.1 percent to 5.25 percent in late 2021 last summer, and stabilized at this level for a year before reducing it to five percent in August. Source: Ku wait News Agency