BoE's Sentance-slowdown much as expected-Bloomberg

LONDON (Reuters) - The slowdown in the British economy has so far not been much greater than that envisaged by the Bank of England in May, central bank policymaker Andrew Sentance was quoted as saying by a news agency on Thursday.

"It's not clear that the slowdown in the economy that has emerged so far is significantly sharper than we were projecting in the May inflation report," Sentance was quoted as saying by Bloomberg News.

"We may have to accept that the economy slows further, that we've got a few more difficult quarters in the real economy to get inflation back to the central bank's 2 percent target."

Sentance is known as one of the most hawkish members of the Monetary Policy Committee.

"I have been particularly struck by the speed with which inflation has moved to somewhere that is significantly above target," Sentance told the news agency.

"There are clear risks to inflation expectations in this environment," he added.

Earlier in the week, Sentance noted that inflation expectations had moved up sharply and this had increased the risk that sharp price rises became embedded.