| New Zealand’s central bank raised interest rates by half a percentage point on Wednesday for a third straight meeting and said it would continue to tighten policy “at pace” until it was certainThe Reserve Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee increased the official cash rate to 2.5 per cent from 2 per cent in Wellington, as expected by all 20 economists in a Bloomberg survey.
Wednesday’s decision was an interim review rather than a quarterly monetary policy statement, so the bank did not issue new forecasts and there was no press conference with governor Adrian Orr.The RBNZ said it remained “comfortable” with the projected path of the official cash rate outlined in its most recent forecasts in May. Those projections show the benchmark rate rising to about 4 per cent next year.
When it unexpectedly raised by 50 basis points in April, it presaged a shift to more aggressive tightening by other central banks.