AUD/CAD

At its meeting today, the Board decided to leave the cash rate target unchanged at 4.10 per cent and the interest rate paid on Exchange Settlement balances unchanged at 4.00 per cent. Interest rates have been increased by 4 percentage points since May last year. The higher interest rates are working to establish a more sustainable balance between supply and demand in the economy and will continue to do so. In light of this and the uncertainty surrounding the economic outlook, the Board again decided to hold interest rates steady this month. This will provide further time to assess the impact of the increase in interest rates to date and the economic outlook. Inflation in Australia has passed its peak but is still too high and will remain so for some time yet. Timely indicators on inflation suggest that goods price inflation has eased further, but the prices of many services are continuing to rise briskly and fuel prices have risen noticeably of late. Rent inflation also remains elevated. The central forecast is for CPI inflation to continue to decline and to be back within the 2–3 per cent target range in late 2025. Growth in the Australian economy was a little stronger than expected over the first half of the year. But the economy is still experiencing a period of below-trend growth and this is expected to continue for a while. High inflation is weighing on people’s real incomes and household consumption growth is weak, as is dwelling investment. Notwithstanding this, conditions in the labour market remain tight, although they have eased a little. Given that the economy and employment are forecast to grow below trend, the unemployment rate is expected to rise gradually to around 4½ per cent late next year. Wages gro tweet: ?*RBA: FURTHER TIGHTENING DEPENDS ON DATA, HOW RISKS EVOLVE *RBA: SOME FURTHER TIGHTENING OF MONETARY POLICY MAY BE REQUIRED *RBA: HIGHER RATES ARE WORKING TO BALANCE SUPPLY, DEMAND *RBA: SEES INFLATION WITHIN 2%-3% TARGET RANGE IN LATE 2025 tweet: RBA: INFLATION IS COMING DOWN, THE LABOUR MARKET REMAINS STRONG AND THE ECONOMY IS OPERATING AT A HIGH LEVEL OF CAPACITY UTILISATION