Australia’s central bank will likely hold its key interest rate at a 12-year high on Tuesday as it tries to restrain consumer prices that have been underpinned by an ultra-tight employment market.
by Swati Pandey
Financial Post
(Bloomberg) — Australia’s central bank will likely hold its key interest rate at a 12-year high on Tuesday as it tries to restrain consumer prices that have been underpinned by an ultra-tight employment market.
The Reserve Bank will keep the cash rate at 4.35% for a fifth straight meeting, economists surveyed by Bloomberg predicted. The decision will be released at 2:30 p.m. in Sydney, followed an hour later by Governor Michele Bullock’s press conference.
Australia’s policy meeting follows a highly-anticipated decision by the Federal Reserve last week, when Chair Jerome Powell signaled he wasn’t in a rush to ease monetary policy even after a soft inflation report. Bullock is likely to draw on the same playbook by retaining her mild hawkish bias in acknowledgment of sticky consumer prices.