The decision by the British central bank the Bank of England (BOE) not to extend its Quantitative Easing (QE) program for April may indicate a period of several months during which there is unlikely to be an extension, an expert said Friday.

Simon Kirby, senior researcher at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), told Xinhua that the current anemic performance of the British economy, with growth of 0.6 percent forecast by the British government's Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) for this year against a long-term trend of 2-2.5 percent, had already been accounted for by the BOE and was unlikely to trigger an extension in the program.

However, Kirby told Xinhua, "No change was what ourselves and the market were expecting, and it is likely to be like this over the next couple of months unless poor numbers come up."

He added, "The BOE has already penciled in relatively weak rate of growth for this year; they are expecting growth of 0.9 percent, stronger than our last forecast and the OBR's but really very little difference, all suggesting very weak growth."

Kirby said that economic statistics from the start of the year suggest that economic growth may be coming in weaker than the BOE was expecting "but there would have to be a significant divergence from their forecast for the MPC to move further towards expansionary policy."

There was a debate between members of the BOE's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) over extension of the QE program, with the current and outgoing BOE Governor Mervyn King in a minority in his wish to extend the program.

Kirby said, "There are a number of MPC members who are concerned about what impact further QE would have on the economy. At the moment it looks like there is going to be relatively little move in policy stance over the next few months, but it is really going to be the arrival of a new bank governor that may mean changes come."

Current BOE governor King steps down in the summer to be replaced by current Canadian central bank governor Mark Carney.

However, Kirby cautioned that the push for QE might be stronger when Carney arrives but "the MPC has nine members and governor is just one of those. We will be replacing one governor who is voting for QE with another governor who is voting for QE, so a new governor is not necessarily going to lead to more expansionary policy." Endi

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