\n
SYDNEY, Feb 17 (Reuters) – Australia’s central bank concluded inflation would stay stubbornly high if it had not hiked interest rates as it did this month, and was not yet sure if \u200cfurther tightening would be necessary.<\/p>\n
Minutes of the Reserve Bank of Australia’s board meeting released on \u200cTuesday showed members were worried that the risks to its inflation and employment mandates had “shifted materially”, making the case to hike the \u200bstronger one.<\/p>\n
“Members agreed that the data received since the previous meeting had strengthened their concern that, without a policy response, inflation would remain persistently above target for too long,” the minutes showed.<\/p>\n
As a result, the board decided unanimously to raise the cash rate 25 basis points to 3.85%, thus reversing one of the three cuts \u200cmade in 2025. Markets are wagering \u2060inflation could also prove stubborn enough this quarter that the board will hike again to 4.10% at its May meeting.<\/p>\n
Consumer price data for the first quarter are due \u2060out in late April and analysts suspect core inflation will remains stuck near 3.4%, well above the RBA’s target range of 2% to 3%.<\/p>\n
The central bank itself is forecasting core inflation of 3.7% for mid-year and 3.2% by \u200bChristmas.<\/p>\n
The minutes \u200bshowed the board saw risks on both sides for \u200binflation and economic activity, and would rely \u200con coming data to make a judgement on policy.<\/p>\n
“Members agreed that the prevailing uncertainties meant it was not possible to have a high degree of confidence in any particular path for the cash rate,” the minutes showed.<\/p>\n
While some of the pickup in inflation would likely be temporary, the rise had been broad based and could persist without a tigthening of policy, minutes showed.<\/p>\n
Yet, the board did agree that it was still \u200cto bring inflation back to target over tome while maintaining \u200bthe significant gains in employment made over the last few years.<\/p>\n
The \u200bboard noted domestic demand had surprised with \u200bits strength, while rapid gains in house prices and mortgage lending suggested financial conditions \u200cwere not as tight as previously assumed.<\/p>\n
The \u200blabour market was also solid \u200bwith unemployment falling to 4.1% in December, such that the board judged “downside risks” to the labour market had abated.<\/p>\n
The global economy had also proved far more resilient to U.S. tariffs than expected, \u200bdue in part to the boom \u200cin AI- related investment and data centres.<\/p>\n
The recent rise in the Australian dollar could if \u200bsustained tighten financial conditions a little, but the board noted part of that appreciation was in \u200banticipation of higher rates.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SYDNEY, Feb 17 (Reuters) – Australia’s central bank concluded inflation would stay stubbornly high if it had not hiked interest rates as it did this month, and was not yet sure if \u200cfurther tightening would be necessary. Minutes of the Reserve Bank of Australia’s board meeting released on \u200cTuesday showed members were worried that the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30299,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_daextam_enable_autolinks":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[1034,3404,601,3403,3402],"class_list":["post-30298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-news","tag-australia","tag-board-meeting","tag-central-bank","tag-core-inflation","tag-reserve-bank-of-australia"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/263f3fe95ee7c5400b3ed82d001df910.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}