Commenting on today’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) decision, David Kern, Chief Economist at the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), said:
“British businesses welcome the MPC’s decision to increase the Quantitative Easing (QE) programme to £325 billion. Although the benefits are not immediately obvious to the business community, quantitative easing plays a key role in strengthening the financial system and stabilising the wider economy. In the face of difficult domestic circumstances and the ongoing crisis in the eurozone, the decision was a sensible one.
“But QE would be more effective for businesses if the MPC included the purchasing of private sector assets in the programme, instead of focusing exclusively on gilts. Furthermore, it should be supplemented by other measures to boost growth and improve the flow of credit to businesses as it will not achieve its full potential on its own. This means implementing an aggressive deregulatory programme alongside a package of credit-easing measures or an SME bank.”
