Bank of England: UK economy could shrink 30% in H1

The Bank of England has warned that the British economy could shrink by 30% in the first half of the year as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

The scale of the decline came as the bank's Monetary Policy Committee announced Thursday it had decided to keep its main interest rate unchanged at the record low of 0.1% and opted against a further expansion of its bond-buying program.

In a statement accompanying its policy decisions, the bank said U.K. GDP is set for a very sharp fall in the first half of the year and a there will be a substantial increase in unemployment beyond those workers who have been retained by their companies as part of the government's Job Retention Scheme.

Overall, it said that the British economy could shrink by 14% this year, but that depends on how long the current lockdown restrictions remain in place.

Two of the nine policymakers wanted to increase the bank's stimulus program by another 100 billion pounds ($124 billion).

The bank said that the timeliest ...