Xinhua Finance Sydney, January 11 (Reporter Li Xiaoyu) The Australian Bureau of Statistics said on the 10th that the country's inflation rate in November 2023 fell further to the lowest level since January 2022. The issue of service inflation remains, and Australian** analysts agree that the country's battle against inflation is not over.
The data showed that the monthly year-on-year increase in Australia's overall consumer ** index fell to 43%, down from 4 in October9% and 5 in September6%, which is also lower than the market expected of 44%, which is well below the recent peak of 84%。
Stephen Wu, an economist at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, said that on a seasonally adjusted basis, Australia's CPI rose by 04%。Month-on-month inflation for the three months to November was 07%, down from 11%。According to data released on the same day, the Commonwealth Bank decided to maintain its assessment of Australia's truncated average quarter-on-quarter inflation for the fourth quarter of 2023 to 09%, and the censored average year-on-year inflation rate will reach 4The 4% forecast is unchanged.
Westpac senior economist Justin Smirk said that Australia's quarter-on-quarter inflation rate is expected to be 08%, and there is little chance that real inflation will be lower than that expectation.
Previously, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) expected inflation in the fourth quarter to reach 45%, and the month-on-month inflation rate will reach 1-11%。Since May 2022, the RBA has raised interest rates by 425 basis points to fight inflation to meet the priority of "returning inflation to the target range of 2-3% within a reasonable time". But central bank governor Bullock said in early December 2023 that there is still significant uncertainty about Australia's deflate outlook, particularly in terms of services** inflation.
Judging from the newly released inflation data, there has been disinflation in many areas of services** in Australia, such as restaurant dining** and home services**, both of which continued to slow in November 2023. However, Stephen Wu pointed out that the increase in renting** in Australia remained strong in November. At the same time, premium growth** continued to grow strongly, hitting 16An all-time high of 2%. These two trends** reflect the continued high cost of construction in Australia and the impact of extreme weather events, respectively.
The Bureau of Statistics said that new home purchases in Australia **continued due to labour and material costs**. Rent** increases are much higher if federal housing rent assistance is excluded.
The persistence of the service** inflation problem has kept the market still unable to rule out the possibility of a rate hike by the RBA in February. Ahead of the November 2023 inflation data, markets are pricing in a just 3% chance of a rate hike by the RBA in February. However, after the release of the data, 9 out of 40 economists surveyed believe that the RBA may still be forced to raise the benchmark interest rate to 4 in February due to concerns about the continued inflation of the labor-intensive service sector, according to the local survey6%。
As Australia uses interest rate hikes as the main way to fight inflation, the question of when the market is most interested in ending the rate hike cycle and starting to cut interest rates is closely related to the trend of inflation. IG market analyst Tony Sycamore said that the market previously ** the probability of the RBA cutting interest rates in August this year was 100%, and then another 25 basis points by December, and the new inflation data will make the market's view more firm. If the Q4 2023 inflation data released at the end of January follows a similar trend to the November 2023 data, then the RBA's first rate cut could be brought forward to June, and there could be three rate cuts this year.
But Catherine Birch, senior economist at ANZ, said that rate cuts may not begin until the end of the year, because if they are cut too soon, inflation will rise again. This view of hers is consistent with Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers' statement on inflation on the 10th. Chalmers said that although inflation has now fallen sharply from its peak level in 2022, Australia's fight against inflation is not over.
Editor: Wang Shurui.
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