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RBA |
Written by Reserve Bank of Australia |
Aug 11 08 05:55 GMT |
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Inflation in Australia has remained high in the recent period against a background of tight capacity and earlier strong growth in demand. In these circumstances, the Board has been seeking to restrain demand in order to reduce inflation over time. |
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RBA |
Written by Reserve Bank of Australia |
Aug 05 08 04:49 GMT |
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Weighing up the available domestic and international information, the Board judged that the cash rate should remain unchanged this month. Nonetheless, with demand slowing, the Board's view is that scope to move towards a less restrictive stance of monetary policy in the period ahead is increasing. |
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RBA |
Written by Reserve Bank of Australia |
Jul 15 08 05:45 GMT |
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The Board's discussion of the world economy opened with the staff forecasts for growth of Australia's trading partners. These had not changed in recent months, and continued to show that GDP of Australia's trading partners (export-weighted) would grow by around 4 per cent in both 2008 and 2009. While this was down from an average of 5 per cent in the past few years, it was in line with longer-run averages. These staff forecasts were similar to the most recent IMF forecasts, though Consensus private-sector forecasts were slightly higher. The slowing was mainly expected to result from further weakness in the industrial economies. |
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RBA |
Written by Reserve Bank of Australia |
Jul 01 08 05:42 GMT |
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At its meeting today, the Board decided to leave the cash rate unchanged at 7.25 per cent. Inflation in Australia has been high over the past year in an environment of limited spare capacity and earlier strong growth in demand. In these circumstances, the Board has been seeking to restrain demand in order to reduce inflation over time. |
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RBA |
Written by Reserve Bank of Australia |
Jun 17 08 07:06 GMT |
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The Board's discussion of the world economy commenced with a briefing on the outlook for Australia's trading partners. Estimated GDP growth for trading partners in the March quarter had been strong, at 1¼ per cent. Staff forecasts continued to be for some slowing over the course of the year, leading to annual growth of around 4 per cent in both 2008 and 2009. This was expected to result from weakness in the industrial economies and a moderation to a still firm pace of growth in the emerging economies. |
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RBA |
Written by Reserve Bank of Australia |
Jun 03 08 05:25 GMT |
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At its meeting today, the Board decided to leave the cash rate unchanged at 7.25 per cent. Inflation in Australia has been high over the past year in an environment of limited spare capacity and earlier strong growth in demand. In these circumstances, the Board has been seeking to restrain demand in order to reduce inflation over time. |
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RBA |
Written by Reserve Bank of Australia |
May 20 08 07:41 GMT |
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Board members were briefed on the CPI data for the March quarter 2008. The CPI rose by 1.3 per cent in the quarter and by 4.2 per cent over the year. The various measures of underlying inflation were similar to the CPI over the latest year. The general increase in inflationary pressure was the result of strong growth in domestic demand in the face of limited spare capacity and rapid growth in commodity prices over the past few years. |
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RBA |
Written by Reserve Bank of Australia |
May 09 08 07:29 GMT |
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Inflation in Australia picked up over the past year in an environment of limited spare capacity and earlier strong demand. In these circumstances, a significant slowing in the growth of demand from the rapid pace of 2007 will be needed in order to return inflation to the target over time. There are signs that such moderation is now occurring. |
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RBA |
Written by Reserve Bank of Australia |
May 06 08 04:45 GMT |
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At its meeting today, the Board decided to leave the cash rate unchanged at 7.25 per cent. Inflation in Australia has been high over the past year, with the CPI rising by a little over 4 per cent and underlying measures at a similar pace. Price rises were widespread, in an environment of limited capacity and earlier strong growth in demand. |
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RBA |
Written by Reserve Bank of Australia |
Apr 15 08 08:47 GMT |
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The Board's discussion of the world economy commenced with a briefing on the global growth outlook. The latest IMF forecasts were for growth in world GDP to be around 3¾ per cent in both 2008 and 2009, following expansion of around 5 per cent in the previous two years. While these IMF forecasts had been marked down by about ½ percentage point for each year from those published in January, they were in line with staff forecasts for Australia's major trading partners made earlier in the year. |
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RBA |
Written by Reserve Bank of Australia |
Apr 01 08 04:47 GMT |
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At its meeting today, the Board decided to leave the cash rate unchanged at 7.25 per cent. For some time now, the Board has been seeking to slow the growth of aggregate demand, in order to reduce inflation. To that end, the Board had increased the cash rate at each of its two previous meetings, as well as on two occasions last year. |
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RBA |
Written by Reserve Bank of Australia |
Mar 18 08 07:34 GMT |
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The Board's discussion on the world economy commenced with a briefing on the outlook for growth in the economies of Australia's trading partners. The staff forecasts, which had been published in the February Statement on Monetary Policy, were for a noticeable slowing in trading partner growth in 2008, reflecting a sharp fall in growth among the G7 economies and ongoing strength in the Asian economies. Trading partner growth was then forecast to rise slightly in 2009. |
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RBA |
Written by Reserve Bank of Australia |
Mar 05 08 08:17 GMT |
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Since I spoke here last year, the economic situation in Australia and abroad has changed quite markedly. The outlook and risks for the global economy have clearly shifted, and so have the prospects for domestic inflation. I want to use my time today to review how these things have evolved over the past year. The main themes are that the past year was a period of higher-than-expected growth, both here and abroad; that domestic inflation picked up; but there are some forces at work that can be expected to put downward pressure on inflation over time. |
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RBA |
Written by Reserve Bank of Australia |
Mar 04 08 02:39 GMT |
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At its meeting today, the Board decided to increase the cash rate by 25 basis points to 7.25 per cent, effective 5 March 2008. This adjustment was made in order to contain and reduce inflation over the medium term. Inflation was high in 2007, with an annual CPI increase of 3 per cent in the December quarter and underlying measures around 3½ per cent. Domestic demand grew at rates appreciably higher than the growth of the economy's productive capacity over the year. Labour market conditions remained strong into early 2008 and reports of high capacity usage and shortages of suitable labour persist. Inflation is likely to remain relatively high in the short term, and will probably rise further in yearended terms, before moderating next year in response to slower growth in demand. |
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RBA |
Written by Reserve Bank of Australia |
Feb 19 08 05:53 GMT |
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Board members were briefed on the CPI data for the December quarter 2007. The quarterly outcome was relatively high at 0.9 per cent, which had lifted the year-ended inflation rate to 3 per cent. There had now been three consecutive high quarterly readings, with the year-ended rate likely to rise further as the price falls associated with falling fruit prices around the beginning of 2007 dropped out of the calculation. In underlying terms, taking an average of the trimmed mean and weighted median measures, year-ended inflation had increased to 3.6 per cent after a period where it had been stable at around 3 per cent. |
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RBA |
Written by Reserve Bank of Australia |
Feb 19 08 05:50 GMT |
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Since the last time I spoke at this event, the RBA has taken a number of steps to increase the amount of information it makes available to the public, both about its policy processes, and its thinking about the economy. We now issue a monthly statement after each Board meeting, setting out the reasons for the latest decision, whether or not the interest rate is being changed. Minutes of the Board meetings are now also published, and they give additional detail on the matters that were considered and the reasoning behind the decision. And those of you who follow these things closely would know that we've increased the level of detail in the economic forecasts set out in our quarterly Statement on Monetary Policy. |
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RBA |
Written by Reserve Bank of Australia |
Feb 11 08 00:31 GMT |
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The Australian economy has remained robust in the recent period, notwithstanding a more difficult international environment. Domestic demand and activity have remained strong and capacity usage is high after a long period of economic expansion. These conditions have been associated with a rise in inflation. Hence Australian monetary policy has had to take into account sharply contrasting domestic and international developments. |
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RBA |
Written by Reserve Bank of Australia |
Feb 05 08 03:24 GMT |
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Recent information points to significant inflation pressures. CPI inflation on a yearended basis picked up to 3 per cent in the December quarter, with underlying measures around 3½ per cent. This was a little higher than was expected a few months ago. Indicators of demand remained strong through the second half of 2007, and reports of high capacity usage and shortages of suitable labour persist. In the short term, inflation is likely to remain relatively high and will probably rise further in yearended terms, though the Bank expects it to moderate somewhat next year. |
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RBA |
Written by Reserve Bank of Australia |
Jan 18 08 14:49 GMT |
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Based on what we can see at present, my judgement is that the direct financial effects of the global turmoil on Australia are likely to be confined mainly to the impact on borrowing costs of the liquidity squeeze of recent months, which has pushed up the cost of wholesale finance a bit in addition to the effects of monetary policy changes. Taking into account the strength of demand, this increase in borrowing costs does not seem likely to pose a particular problem for the economy as a whole. There is no evidence, moreover, of a 'credit crunch' in the domestic financial sector. On the contrary, thus far the core elements of the domestic system have stepped into the potential gap left by the capital markets. |
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RBA |
Written by Reserve Bank of Australia |
Dec 18 07 10:19 GMT |
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The meeting began with a discussion about the world economic environment. National accounts data for the September quarter for most of Australia’s major trading partners indicated that, weighted by their shares in Australia’s merchandise exports, year-ended growth had continued to be about 5 per cent. While there had been little sign of a slowdown in the data thus far, forecasts from the IMF in October indicated that trading partner growth on this basis was likely to slow in 2008 to around 4½& per cent. The latest adverse developments in credit markets suggested that these forecasts would be revised down further. |
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RBA |
Written by Reserve Bank of Australia |
Dec 05 07 10:20 GMT |
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At its meeting yesterday, the Board decided to leave the cash rate unchanged at 6.75 per cent. As part of wider changes to communication practices which the Board has adopted (see separate announcement on communication), it was further decided that a statement explaining the decision would be released. |
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