RBA reviewed its policy and expressing concern about borrowing

18 Feb 2020 01:39 PM

The Reserve Bank of Australia revised the further rate cut policy, but decided to be against it in order to avoid the additional encouragement of borrowing in light of rising house prices, this came in the minutes of the meeting of the monetary policy committee that took place on the fourth of February.

The central bank expects the outbreak of the Coronavirus to subtract export growth during the first half of 2020, and acknowledged that "it is difficult to assess the potential indirect impacts on activity" of the epidemic and devastating forest fires during the summer because the data has not yet been released.

So far, the Australian Reserve is likely to maintain easing bias and confirm its expectations that interest rates will remain low for “an extended time”. The bank has maintained a broadly optimistic view of the outlook for the economy.

The Reserve Bank of Australia eased its policy three times last year to a record low of 0.75% while keeping interest rates unchanged two weeks ago.

"The outlook for the Australian economy was heading towards better growth, supported by a shift in investment in mining, as well as in dwelling and consumption," the bank said.

In the short term, the bank added, the effects of forest fires have had a temporary impact on domestic growth, but the recovery was likely to reverse the negative impacts on GDP.

Tags:

Prices may be delayed by 5 seconds. Prices above are subject to our website terms and conditions. Prices are indicative only