Howard Archer Unchanged Quotations

Year-on-year growth of 2.2-percent exactly matched the Bank of England's forecast... reinforcing expectations that interest rates are set to remain unchanged for several more months to come.

Robust service sector activity in February makes it even more of a cast-iron certainty that the Bank of England will keep interest rates unchanged next Thursday.

The disappointing decline in manufacturing output is most unlikely to sway the Bank of England from leaving interest rates unchanged on Thursday.

This is still a pretty healthy report overall that suggests that the service sector has started 2006 relatively strongly. The report does little to change perceptions that the Bank of England will keep interest rates unchanged next week, and very probably for some time to come after then.