Skip to main content

Australia inflation edges up but still below target

Australia Inflation

SYDNEY: Australian inflation ticked higher in the final quarter of 2019 but core measures remained subdued despite three interest rate cuts, suggesting the country’s central bank will have to do more to revive consumer prices.

The consumer price index (CPI) rose 0.7% in the December quarter, higher than forecasts of a 0.6% increase, driven by gains in cigarettes, domestic holidays, travel, fuel and fruit prices.

The annual pace rose to 1.8%, still below the floor of the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) 2-3% target band. Indeed, a key measure of core inflation was stuck at an even slower 1.6% marking four straight years below target.

This persistent weakness was one reason the RBA cut interest rates three times last year to an all time low of 1.75%, and why markets are still pricing in at least one more easing.

The central bank holds it first policy meeting of the year next week but is thought likely to stand pat given a recent welcome dip in the unemployment rate.

Futures <0#YIB:> imply a less than 15% chance of an easing on Feb. 4, though that rises to over 70% by April.

While the rate cuts to date have succeeded in reviving home prices, consumers remain burdened by stagnant wage growth and record-high debt levels.

Weeks of raging bushfires have further darkened the mood, as has the outbreak of coronavirus and its baleful impact on Chinese tourism to Australia.

Some of the increase in prices was due to drought and lower seasonal supplies of fruit, vegetables and meat. Economists expect the bushfires and the ongoing drought to further push up prices in coming months.

Ivan Colhoun, a senior economist at NAB, estimates the fires could shave 0.4% points off economic growth this quarter, while the virus could cost A$1-2 billion in lost tourism revenue.

The post Australia inflation edges up but still below target appeared first on ARY NEWS.



from ARY NEWS https://ift.tt/2O6V24e
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Trump says he urged team to ‘slow’ COVID-19 testing

US President Donald Trump said Saturday he was encouraging health officials in his administration to slow down coronavirus testing, arguing that increased tests lead to more cases being discovered. The president has claimed falsely on several occasions that surges of COVID-19 in several states can be explained by greater numbers of diagnostic tests. At his first rally since the outbreak forced nationwide shutdowns in March, Trump told the crowd in Tulsa, Oklahoma that testing was a “double-edged sword.” The United States — which has more deaths and cases than any other country — has carried out more than 25 million coronavirus tests, placing it outside the top 20 countries in the world, per capita. “Here is the bad part: When you do testing to that extent, you are going to find more people, you will find more cases,” Trump argued. “So I said to my people ‘slow the testing down.’ They test and they test.” It was not clear from Trump’s tone if he was playing to the crowd, who ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sir Anwer Pervez, richest Pakistani British businessman, loses £432m in pandemic

Sir Anwar Pervez OBE, the founder and chairman of Bestway Cash & Carry has lost £432 million during the coronavirus pandemic to bring him down to No 50 on the richest British people list. The list has 1,000 people and is published by the Sunday Times newspaper . Pervez was at No 42 previously.  The 2020 list of the UK’s richest shows its first fall in wealth in a decade as Britain’s wealthiest people lost tens of billions of pounds in the coronavirus pandemic, the Sunday Times reported in its Rich List 2020. The newspaper, which has produced the respected annual ranking of the country’s 1,000 wealthiest people since 1989, found the past two months had resulted in the super-rich losing £54 billion ($65 billion). More than half of the billionaires in Britain had seen drops in their worth by as much as £6b, a decrease in their collective wealth unprecedented since 2009 and the financial crisis. The Hinduja brothers, who topped last year’s list with a £22b fortune, saw among ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Despite reservations about jury, Pakistan to implement FATF reforms: envoy

WASHINGTON: Despite its reservations about the fairness of the jury which is to determine Pakistan’s performance against terror financing, the government is committed to implementing its action plan for dealing with this issue, says Islamabad’s Washington envoy Asad Majeed Khan. In a conversation with a prominent US scholar George Perkovich, recorded at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington on Monday afternoon, Ambassador Khan said the actions that Pakistan had taken so far to eliminate terror financing were “reflective of the political will”. “We feel that we have done a lot. We are also clear and determined to do more,” said the envoy while responding to a question about a meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) held in Orlando last week, which asked Pakistan to implement its own action plan for eliminating terror financing by October. Failing to do so could put Pakistan on a blacklist of violators and bring strict economic sanctions too. “But we w...
Post a Comment
Read more