The British central bank the Bank of England (BOE) indicated at its last bank-rate setting meeting that it would raise the rate "in the coming months," but experts believe a rise is on the cards for next week.

The BOE's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) will meet on Thursday, and economists say the bank rate will likely go up then.

This would mark the first rise in the bank rate since July 2007. Prompted by the financial crisis and its aftermath, every move since then has been downward.

The last downward move to a record low of 0.25 percent was in August 2016, part of a planned response by the central bank to the anticipated pressures brought to bear on the economy by June's Brexit referendum decision.

UNWINDING BREXIT RATE CUT

Experts now talk of an unwinding of that position to return the rate to 0.5 percent, a position where it had been since the depths of the financial crisis in March 2009.

Earlier this week, the first reading of the British GDP for the third quarter came in at 0.4 percent quarter-on-quarter growth. This is above the consensus expectation of 0.3 percent growth and was 0.1 percentage point above the growth seen in each of the first two quarters of the year.

While this is unspectacular, given that British trend growth is somewhere around 2-2.5 percent and that other developed economies such as the United States and the eurozone are expected to outpace British GDP growth this year, it is still not the decline in growth that had been predicted before the referendum by some experts if a Brexit decision was made.

Dr Howard Archer, chief economic adviser with EY ITEM Club, a data analysis firm in London, told Xinhua: "I think it probably gives a decisive nudge to the BOE raising interest rates."

"They have been markedly more hawkish in the minutes of their September meeting and that came despite the fact they were estimating third quarter growth at 0.3 percent," Archer added.

"So third quarter growth of 0.4 percent is slightly better than they had been expecting. That suggests that they are likely to hike."

BOE's MPC members will look at a backdrop of political uncertainty over the Brexit process as they make their rate decision next week.

POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC UNCERTAINTY

Political uncertainty has led to some signs of economic uncertainty, with a report this week from EEF, a representative body for industrial firms, reporting that two thirds of its firms have said Brexit has impacted on their decisions, and 49 percent of firms have said they won't be investing as much in the coming year as they have in past years.

Yet, hard economic data indicate that slack in the economy is close to being used up, with unemployment under 4.5 percent, at a low not seen since the early 1970s and considerably lower than other developed economies.

In addition, consumer price inflation has been on a sharp upward path since the Brexit vote.

It has risen from 0.5 percent to 3 percent, with the BOE's governor Mark Carney expecting it to be close to a peak now.

The rise has been largely driven by a sharp fall in sterling in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote, which has made imports and raw materials more expensive.

This has fed through quickly to the economy, but its effect is close to the peak and will pass out of the figures in the coming months.

Amit Kara, head of British macroeconomic forecasting at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), an economic think-tank in London, told Xinhua:" There is every chance that the BOE will raise the policy rate."

The NIESR believed that the BOE should reverse the 25-basis-point cut in the bank rate that it carried out in August 2016.

Kara said this is in a large part because the economy has not performed as badly as the BOE or many other people feared.

"There is also a case to be made for further rate increases if productivity does not recover," Kara said.

While GDP growth is below trend, the potential growth rate is also lower as productivity has not recovered since the financial crisis.

"Growth rates of 0.4 percent and unemployment of 4.3 percent might be consistent with an overheated economy," said Kara.

Archer with EY ITEM Club said there were compelling reasons for the MPC to raise the rate, beyond the continued moderate GDP growth of 0.4 percent.

"On top of that you have inflation at 3 percent and unemployment at 4.3 percent," he said.

While he expected a rate rise, Archer also pointed to inflation outstripping pay growth: "Having said that, the doves on the MPC can point to there being little sign of pay growth having picked up."