Europe's two leading central banks - the Bank of England and the European Central Bank (ECB) - left rates on hold Thursday amid fears that spiralling oil and food prices were threatening to trigger renewed inflationary pressures, according to DPA. While the Bank of England meeting in London held rates at 5 per cent, the Frankfurt-based ECB holding one of its regular out-of-town meetings in Athens left its benchmark refinancing rate unchanged at a six-year high of 4 per cent. It was the 11th consecutive month that rates in the 15-member eurozone have been in hold with ECB chief Jean-Claude Trichet indicating that the bank was in no rush to trim rates insisting that curbing inflationary expectations remained the ECB's "highest priority." The build-up to Thursday's meetings of the Bank of England was accompanied by oil prices surging to a record high just short of 124 dollars a barrel. Speaking at his regular press conference Thursday, Trichet insisted that the ECB was in a state of "permanent alertness," adding there was "no time for complacency in any respect." He also warned that in the wake of the US subprime mortgage crisis, "the level of uncertainty resulting from the turmoil in financial markets remained unusually high and tensions still persist."
