LONDON (AP) — Speculation mounted yesterday that the Bank of England may take a break from boosting the money supply as the British economy shows signs of emerging from recession.

The British pound rose to an almost seven-month high against the euro on comments by central bank policy maker Paul Fisher. Markets interpreted them as likely signalling at least a temporary halt to its quantitative easing programme, in which it expands the amount of money in the economy.

Fisher said in an interview published in the Financial Times that the bank's interest rate cuts down to a record low of 0.5 percent and its injection of money were working.

The bank has previously been publicly cautious about the success of the programme begun in March, repeatedly saying it would take time to work through the system and that it was too early to judge.

"Personally, I feel much more confident now that the asset purchase programme is having the scale and speed of impact that we would have hoped for when we started," Fisher was quoted as saying in the Financial Times.

"Even two or three months ago it was still very difficult to find hard evidence which would justify that confidence, even though that is what we believed; now I think it's much clearer."

At present, the bank can buy up to £175 billion ($281 billion) of financial assets, such as government bonds, from the banks by creating new money. The aim of the policy is to increase the amount of money in circulation in the hope that eventually the banks will start lending more to the private sector.

As of October 1, the bank had purchased £162.2 billion of assets.

Duncan Higgins, a senior analyst at Caxton FX, said that Fisher's comments run against overarching bearish sentiment about the British economy. Many believed that the central bank would extend the program by another £25 billion when the monetary policy committee meets next month.

Monument Securities analyst Stephen Lewis said that Fishers' comments "could mean that, in sterling markets, there will be an abrupt transition from feast to famine as the Bank withdraws as a buyer of assets".

The pound rose to 91.87 pence per euro in morning trade, the biggest gain since March, and to $1.6231, the highest against the dollar since the start of August.

Higgins said that it was now "very difficult" to predict the bank's next move, adding that the scheduled release of third quarter growth figures next week would be critical.

Britain officially entered recession at the turn of the year following two quarters of negative gross domestic product growth in the second half of 2008 — the widely accepted definition of a recession — and its path out the downturn remains clouded.

Economists had expected GDP to return to growth in the latest July to September quarter after a 0.6 percent contraction between April and June, but more recent weak data on manufacturing and business confidence has cast doubt on that prediction.