The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has again voted to keep the Bank Rate at 0.5%.

The MPC also decided to keep quantitative easing at £200 billion.

This means the base rate has remained unchanged for the 29th consecutive month at its lowest ever rate of 0.5%.

Grenville Turner, group chief executive of Countrywide, said: “The UK economy continues to face considerable domestic challenges and also from Europe and the impact of the uncertainty generated by the US budget position. Both the CBI and the National Institute of Economic and Social Research have downgraded their own growth forecasts for 2011 to 1.3% which highlights the overall vulnerability of the UK economy.