Watchful approach: People walk past an ANZ Bank branch in Sydney. Hunter says the central bank is assessing the implications for domestic growth, given China is Australia’s largest trading partner, particularly when it comes to the outlook for 2025. — Reuters
SYDNEY: Australia’s central bank is still running through the local implications of China’s stimulus measures as officials prepare the reserve bank’s latest update of forecasts for next month’s board meeting, assistant governor Sarah Hunter says.
“It’s obviously very recent news,” Hunter said in an interview with Bloomberg Television in Sydney yesterday.
“We are factoring it into our forecasts going into November and we do pay, as you might expect, a lot of attention to China given how important it is to the economy here.”
She said the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is assessing the implications for domestic growth given China is Australia’s largest trading partner, particularly when it comes to the outlook for 2025.
Hunter, in her role as RBA assistant governor, oversees economic forecasting and is the chief economic adviser to governor Michele Bullock.
Officials in Beijing have signalled a desire to draw a line under China’s growth slowdown, unleashing a series of stimulus measures from monetary to regulatory easing since late September.
A rare Politburo meeting last month that focused on the economy also made its first pledge to stop the property market from “declining”. Australia “still has very strong link” with China, Hunter said, answering a question on Canberra’s efforts to diversify its trade relationships.
“China’s still very important and we put a lot of our time and attention into thinking through what’s happening there and what it means for the economy here.”
Earlier, in a speech to a Citigroup Inc conference in Sydney, Hunter said the central bank is on constant alert for signs that inflation expectations may become unmoored in the current episode of elevated and sticky prices, though it’s confident they’re contained in the near-term.
“The fact that expectations feed into actual inflation outcomes means de-anchored expectations typically leads to greater inflation volatility,” Hunter said.
“Given the enormous damage that such de-anchoring can cause, and that policy can be enacted more flexibly while expectations remain anchored, the RBA board is constantly alert for signs that this risk might emerge here in Australia.”
So far, Hunter concluded, expectations remain well within the RBA’s 2% to 3% target. She pointed to some evidence that households and labour unions are actually taking less of a signal from the recent elevated price pressures.
“It’s important that we track how they’re evolving and that we understand how expectations are formed, so we can monitor whether there are any signs of this risk materialising in the future,” said Hunter.
Hunter’s comments come as the RBA has said it will hold interest rates at the current 12-year high of 4.35% until it’s confident inflation is moving sustainably back to target.
That contrasts with most of the developed world, which has already embarked on an easing cycle. Last month, Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell led his colleagues in an outsized rate cut designed to preserve the strength of the US economy.
Financial market pricing implies the RBA’s next move is down, with a cut seen early next year. — Bloomberg
