Updated

Bank of England Governor Mark Carney says the central bank is not planning to increase its record-low interest rate until U.K. unemployment falls below 7 percent.

Carney, delivering his first quarterly inflation since he became governor, issued "forward guidance" on interest rates — currently at 0.5 percent — to avoid "unwarranted...expectations."

The 48-year-old former governor of the Bank of Canada told reporters Wednesday that if unemployment falls to 7 percent from the current 7.8 percent — which is not expected to happen until 2016 — it would not automatically trigger an increase in interest rates but would be a "waystation" to reassess bank policy.

Carney took office July 1, becoming the first non-Briton to run the bank in its 319-year history.