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mpc: 19 The Committee's central projection, based on the assumption of an official repo rate of 4.0%, was for the growth rate of GDP at market prices to pick up at the beginning of 2004, giving a somewhat stronger near-term profile than the central projection in November. Thereafter, growth was likely to moderate to a rate broadly similar in the second year to that projected three months earlier. The Committee's central projection was for CPI inflation to increase gradually towards the 2% target over the next two years. During 2004, some factors, such as planned utility price increases, would make temporary positive contributions to the overall inflation rate. Domestic inflationary pressures were expected to rise throughout the next two years and were likely to be stronger than expected last November, although their impact on prospective CPI inflation would be mitigated by the higher sterling exchange rate incorporated in the latest projection. Domestic pressures would be accompanied towards the end of the period by the impact of increasing world import prices. At the two-year horizon, on the central projections, CPI inflation would be around 0.5 percentage points below RPIX inflation.