Australia's central bank keeps interest rates unchanged

Alsharq Tribune-Otaify 

Australia's central bank unanimously voted to keep interest rates on hold on Tuesday following an unexpected rise in inflation.

The Monetary Policy Board of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) said following a scheduled meeting on Tuesday that it decided to keep the cash rate target unchanged at 3.60 percent.

The decision to keep the key interest rate on hold followed a spike in inflation in the third quarter of 2025 and was in line with unanimous forecasts from economists and major banks.

In its monetary policy decision statement, the board said that there is uncertainty about the outlook for domestic economic activity and inflation stemming from domestic and international developments.

"Uncertainty in the global economy remains elevated, but so far there has been minimal impact on overall growth and trade, and many forecasters have revised up their near-term expectations for world growth. Trade policy developments are still expected to have an adverse effect on world growth over time," it said.

Australia's quarterly rate of inflation hit a two-year high in the three months to the end of September, according to official data released in October by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

Annual trimmed mean inflation, the measure of underlying inflation preferred by the RBA, hit 3.0 percent in the 12 months to September, up from 2.7 percent in the year to the end of the preceding June quarter.

In August, the RBA forecast that underlying inflation would remain stable around the midpoint of its 2-3 percent target range through the end of 2027.

The RBA had previously cut the cash rate by 0.25 percentage points three times in 2025 from 4.35 percent at the start of the year.

The Monetary Policy Board will next meet to consider changing the cash rate on Dec. 9.