LONDON, (Reuters) - The British public have scaled back their expectations that the Bank of England will raise interest rates over the next 12 months to the lowest in a year, a survey by the central bank showed on Friday.
The change in public expectations mirrors a shift in sentiment among professional economists as the outlook for growth in Britain's main euro zone export market has darkened and inflation looks set to fall further below target.
The proportion of Britons expecting rates to increase in the next year sank to 37 percent in November, its lowest since November 2013, from a three-year high of 49 percent in August.
Economists polled by Reuters last week forecast interest rates would rise from their record low 0.5 percent between July and September next year, and in recent days financial markets have priced a move even later.
In early November, BoE Governor Mark Carney did not dispute financial market estimates of a rate rise around October, and said consumer price inflation was likely to dip below 1 percent in the coming months due to a sharp fall in oil prices.
Britons polled in the run-up to Carney's Nov. 12 remarks expected inflation over the next 12 months to average 2.5 percent, down from expectations of 2.8 percent in August. This was the lowest expectation since February 2010.
British consumer price inflation in October rose to 1.3 percent after touching a five-year low of 1.2 percent in September. The longer-running retail price index, which is used to determine price rises in many British contracts, held at 2.3 percent.
A similar survey by polling company YouGov for U.S. bank Citi showed last week that Britons' inflation expectations for the year to come had fallen to a five-year low of 1.8 percent in November.
The BoE survey, which is conducted by GfK and covers nearly 2,000 people, showed that inflation expectations for two years ahead sank to 2.5 percent from 2.8 percent, and that people expected inflation of around 3.0 percent in five years' time.
(Reporting by David Milliken and Liisa Tuhkanen)