New Zealand’s central bank kept interest rates unchanged for a second straight meeting but signaled the risk that it may need to raise them again to tame inflation.
The Reserve Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee held the Official Cash Rate at 5.5% Wednesday in Wellington, as expected by all 22 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The bank’s forecasts show a slightly higher track for the average OCR from the fourth quarter of this year through the final quarter of 2024, implying a chance of an increase.
“The Committee agreed that the OCR needs to stay at restrictive levels for the foreseeable future to ensure annual consumer price inflation returns to the 1-3% target range,” the RBNZ said. “In the near term, there is a risk that activity and inflation measures do not slow as much as expected.”
