LONDON (Reuters) - The Bank of England kept interest rates at a record low of 0.5 percent for the 13th month running yesterday and made no increase to its £200 billion asset-buying scheme to boost the economy.

Not one of the 64 analysts had expected the central bank to make any changes this month given the economic outlook remains unclear and will likely be so at least until after a national election on May 6. The BoE cut rates to their record low and started buying assets with new money in March 2009 when the economy was still reeling from a global credit crunch. Conditions have improved since and the BoE paused its "quantitative easing" in February, keeping open the option to revive it if the economy conditions deteriorated.