Nearly four out of five economists now see at least another quarter-point rise in UK base rates to 5.75% and the probability attached to an increase to 6% has increased to 30%, it emerged yesterday amid further inflationary danger signs.

A survey from the Confederation of British Industry showed manufacturers are more confident about their ability to push through price increases than at any time since March 1995. Firms' pricing power has emerged as the issue of most concern to the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee as it tries to bring annual UK consumer prices index inflation, which spiked to 3.1% in March and dipped to 2.8% last month, back to its 2% target.

Reuters yesterday published a poll showing 49 of 62 economists now expect rates to hit at least 5.75% by September. Five forecast the next rise at the end of the MPC's next meeting on June 7. The poll was conducted after publication on Wednesday of minutes from the MPC's meeting two weeks ago, which revealed a half-point rise was discussed before a quarter-point move was implemented, The hardening of interest rate expectations has been significant and swift.

As recently as Wednesday last week, even after the MPC had published a hawkish quarterly inflation report, only 35 of 62 economists predicted a rise to 5.75%. A week earlier, after the MPC announced the quarter-point rise in rates to 5.5% on May 10, only 21 of 62 forecast an increase to 5.75% and the probability attached to such a move was only 40%.

The median probability attached in this week's poll to a move to 5.75% is 75%, and that put on a subsequent rise to 6% this year is 30%.

The CBI survey showed 32% of manufacturers expected the average price at which domestic orders were booked to rise in the next three months, with only 8% predicting a fall. The rounded net 25% forecasting a rise was the greatest such balance since March 1995.

Thirty-two per cent of manufacturers said total order books were above normal for the time of year, with only 26% considering them poorer than usual. The rounded net 5% considering them better than usual is a strong reading in the context of the CBI survey.

Lucy O'Carroll, director of research at banking group HBOS's treasury services division, said yesterday: "We know that the Monetary Policy Committee is paying particularly close attention to firms' pricing behaviour at the moment, because they told us so in last week's inflation report. Today's eye-catching survey results will therefore give them little comfort."

She added: "In the (inflation) report, they put forward a number of possible explanations for the strength of firms' pricing behaviour in recent months. On the one hand, they suggested that companies might simply be playing catch-up' after last year's squeeze on margins as a result of rising energy bills. If so, prices might stop rising once margins had been rebuilt, with little threat to the inflation target. But on the other hand, if firms were increasing prices because of strong demand, or because they believed consumers had simply become more tolerant of rising prices in an environment where inflation has overshot the target for the past year, companies could keep raising prices for as long as that tolerance lasts, which would threaten the MPC's medium-term inflation target.

"On the evidence of today's CBI survey the latter, more worrying explanations may be winning the day. By implication, the chances of the committee raising rates again, to 5.75%, have undoubtedly risen."

CBI chief economic adviser Ian McCafferty appealed to the MPC not to move too quickly to raise rates again.

He said: "We have not yet seen the impact of the four recent rises in interest rates on domestic demand so, while this data will be closely monitored by the Bank, there is little justification for another rate rise immediately."

On a softer note, National Statistics figures showed a surprise 1.3% fall in UK business investment during the first quarter. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development meanwhile predicted base rates would peak at 5.5%, but warned of upside risks, as it raised its forecast of 2007 UK growth from2.6% to 2.7%.

Further clues will come today when National Statistics publishes its latest estimate of first-quarter growth.