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mpc: 2 There had been a significant upward movement in short-term market interest rate expectations over the past month, both in the United Kingdom and internationally. Official interest rates were now expected to rise to 4.75% or above in the United States by around the middle of 2006, and expectations of a near-term rise in the official policy rate in the euro area had also firmed. The 0.25 percentage point interest rate reduction formerly priced into the UK yield curve had all but disappeared, leaving interest rate expectations broadly flat. Nonetheless, many economists in the latest Reuters poll still expected a reduction in UK interest rates in 2006.