On July 26th, Guo Lianhui | Whether the Bank of England will announce its first interest rate cut since 2020 next week is still a mystery. Due to regulations before the July 4th election, major decision makers have not made public statements for more than two months, so the uncertainty is greater than usual. Whether the recent higher-than-expected service inflation is enough to prevent the central bank from reducing the interest rate from the 16-year high of 5.25% is up to investors to guess. Interest rate futures show that there is a 50% chance of a 25 basis point rate cut on August 1st. Although a Reuters survey shows that most economists still expect a rate cut, many people won't be too surprised if the Bank of England waits until the next meeting on September 19th to cut interest rates. Bank of England Governor Bailey said that decision-makers "need to be sure that inflation will remain low" before they will cut interest rates. The unexpected strong economic growth in the UK from January to May 2024 may reduce the urgency of the central bank's interest rate cut. The Royal Bank of Canada expects the Bank of England to raise its economic growth forecast for 2024 from 0.4% in May to 1%, while in 2023, UK economic growth was only 0.1%. However, Dutch international economist James Smith believes that the committee's overt insistence on ensuring that inflationary pressures have been suppressed is risky. "The remaining time in 2024 to achieve decent growth performance partly depends on whether these interest rate reductions can be fulfilled, and Bank of England officials will not ignore this fact," he said.