BoE says economy won't return to pre-pandemic size until 2022

LONDON (Reuters) - The Bank of England on Thursday said that the economy would not reach its pre-pandemic size until the first quarter of 2022, pushing back its forecast of how quickly output would return to its Q4 2019 level.

"In the MPC's central projection, GDP does not exceed its level in 2019 Q4 until 2022 Q1," the Bank of England said, having previously said it would return to the level in 2021.

(Reporting by Alistair Smout, Editing by Paul Sandle)