Highlights
The Reserve Bank of Australia has published the minutes of its March 17th meeting. Officials at that meeting increased their main policy rate, the cash rate, by 25 basis points from 3.85 percent to 4.10 percent.
Consistent with the statement accompanying the decision, the minutes note that policy board members were concerned about recent strength in headline inflation, which has now been above the target range of two percent to three percent for six consecutive months. Inflation, they judged, was already"too high" and was likely to increase further in coming months in response to the spike in fuel prices caused by the Iran conflict.
Reflecting these considerations, members considered whether a immediate rate increase was warranted at this meeting. Although they noted"concerns about the effect of heightened uncertainty on the outlook for the economy", mainly due to the Iran conflict, a majority of members concluded that the worsening outlook for inflation required further policy tightening. They also advised, however, that"it was not possible to predict the future path for the cash rate target with any confidence" but promised to do what they consider necessary to return inflation to its target range.
Definition
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) publishes minutes of its meetings with a two week lag. The text expands on the statement published two weeks earlier at the time of the announcement.
Description
Although the RBA's Reserve Bank Board issues a detailed statement at the conclusion of its monthly meetings, investors also look to the minutes for a more detailed description of current economic outlook both domestically and abroad along with the latest RBB policy thinking.
It is only recently that the RBA has released meeting minutes. At the conclusion of their December 2007 meeting, the RBA announced several changes to its communications policy. Previously, a statement was released only if a policy change was made. Now a statement is released at the conclusion of every meeting. Another change concerned the timing of the policy announcement. Rather than waiting until the next day, the announcement occurs immediately after the conclusion of the meeting. In addition, minutes are now released two weeks after the meeting.