The Australian dollar against the US dollar has increased abruptly. The current quote is 0.6703. At the meeting today, the Reserve Bank of Australia decided to lift the interest rate by 25 base points to 3.85% per annum. This was unexpected: only 9 economists out of 30 polled by Bloomberg had expected this. In the comments, the RBA highlighted that inflation remained too high, which might require further tightening of the credit and monetary policy.
The CPI of 7% is still considered high. Some time needs to pass for the prices to return to their target range. Inflation is expected to amount to 4.5% per annum in 2023 and 3% in mid-2025. The unemployment rate will be growing gradually, amounting to 4.5% by the mid-2025.
This news let Aussie ignore the Chinese statistics issued earlier where officially the PMI in the processing industry in April dropped to 49.2 points. That development enhanced market doubts about whether the economy will be able to grow at the previous rates in the future.
