British central bank keeps policies unchanged

The Bank of England said Thursday it would keep its current monetary policies intact. The central bank, which explains its monetary policy decisions through meeting minutes released three weeks after the fact, said it would keep its overnight lending rate at 0.5 percent and continue with its $581.3 billion asset purchasing program. The announcement was widely expected. The British economy is crawling out of a recession. In the first quarter, Britain's gross domestic product grew a nominal 0.3 percent. In the fourth quarter of 2012, the GDP shrank by 0.3 percent, data from the Office of National Statistics shows.