RBNZ Assistant Governor Karen Silk said in an interview, “What we have seen is actual inflation continue to surprise on the upside, but more importantly inflation expectations have moved higher as well… And it’s the persistence factor that has probably been the most surprising.”
On tightening, “obviously we started way earlier than other central banks, so other central banks had to move an awful lot faster basically to play catch up,” she said. “So no, I don’t believe that the MPC has dilly-dallied around on this at all.”
“If the information shows that we’ve reached that peak (5.5% interest rate) and we see that turn and we’re starting to see real impacts on inflation and inflation expectations, then that does offer us the opportunity to revisit,” she said.
