LONDON: British industrial production and new car registrations rose in recent months, data showed yesterday, as the Bank of England announced it would increase the size of its monetary stimulus.

With the economy still mired in recession, the central bank said it would spend another £25 billion ($57.5 billion) to buy assets from banks to expand the money supply.

The Bank, which held its key lending rate at an all-time low of 0.5 per cent, reiterated its view that recovery would be slow.

In fact, the 1.6 per cent monthly rise in industrial production in September wasn't enough to pull the sector to growth in the third quarter, and new construction orders were flat, the Office for National Statistics said.

The statistics agency had reported that the UK economy shrank by 0.4 per cent in the third quarter, keeping it in recession.

"With production still down by more than 10 per cent on a year ago, the road to recovery in industry will be a long and bumpy one," said Jonathan Loynes at Capital Economics. A respected economic think tank, meanwhile, predicted that the UK economy shrank by 0.4 per cent in the three months through October.

"The buoyancy of industrial production in September is good news, but a rise between May and July petered out with renewed weakness in August," the National Institute for Economic and Social Research said.

Meanwhile, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said 168,942 vehicles were registered in October, a 32 per cent surge, the biggest monthly gain this year.

The Office for National Statistics said that within the industrial sector, manufacturers saw output rise 1.7 per cent in September, although activity for the third quarter as a whole was still down 0.1 per cent from the second quarter.

Mining and oil production rose 1.7 per cent in September but was down 4.7 per cent from the second to third quarters. Construction orders were unchanged in the third quarter, the agency said.

- AP