BoE's Bailey sticks to 'gradual' script for rate cuts

LONDON (Reuters) -Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey reiterated in an interview published on Wednesday that gradual cuts in interest rates are likely over the next year, adding that the process of falling inflation is well embedded.

"This sort of disinflation process is now well embedded," Bailey told the Financial Times Global Boardroom event.

"There is still a distance to travel because although inflation came down to target over the summer, we've been saying for a while that... we were probably going to go back a bit above target," he said.

British inflation jumped by more than expected in October to rise back above the BoE's 2% target and underlying price growth gathered speed too.

Sterling fell against the U.S. dollar after the FT reported Bailey as saying the BoE expected four interest rate cuts next year. In the interview, he said that had been the expectation of financial markets when the BoE incorporated them into its most recent economic forecasts.

Asked whether companies should expect four rate cuts next year, Bailey said: "We always condition what we publish in terms of the projection on market rates, and so as you rightly say, that was effectively the view the market had - we emphasised in that report the word 'gradual'."

Bailey said estimating the impact on inflation from a possible increase in protectionism and rising trade tariffs once Donald Trump returns to the White House was "not straightforward at all".

"It moves traded prices. But of course, it also depends on how other countries react to them. It depends on how exchange rates react to them as well. So the effect is not at all straightforward to predict," Bailey said.

(Reporting by Suban Abdulla and William SchombergWriting by Andy Bruce)