The Reserve Bank has left the Official Cash Rate (OCR) unchanged today at 1.75 percent.
Governor Graham Wheeler said “Monetary policy will remain accommodative for a considerable period. Numerous uncertainties remain and policy may need to adjust accordingly”.
ASB chief economist Nick Tuffley said there was little change to Wheeler’s stance from February. “We had expected some bringing forward of the implied tightening to the first half of 2019.”
Despite the economic developments since the February Monetary Policy Statement suggesting that interest rate increases might be looming, Wheeler said the overall impacts of these were “neutral” in terms of monetary policy. Although global economic growth had picked up, major challenges remained with on-going surplus capacity and political uncertainty.
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