Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Lowe speaking before the Australian Parliament's House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics
- Australia's recovery will be uneven, bumpy, drawn-out
- expects growth to solidly positive in Q3 and Q4 of this year
- wage and price pressures likely to remain subdued
- assume significant restrictions on international travel will exist by end 2021
- next year, our central scenario is for the economy to grow by 5 per cent and then 4 per cent over 2022
- recent medical breakthroughs give us some hope that things will work out better than our central scenario
- relatively high bond yields was putting unhelpful upward pressure on the value of A$
- still a high degree of uncertainty about the outlook
- addressing the high rate of unemployment is a priority for the reserve bank board
- the board will continue to review details of QE package at our future meetings
- still of the view that a negative policy interest rate in Australia is extraordinarily unlikely
- we are prepared to do more, if that is required
- paying close attention to asset prices and trends in household debt
- in the current environment, bigger stability risk is a protracted period of high unemployment
- says possible people will continue to take more cautious approach to borrowing than they did before the pandemic
These appearances tend to stretch on for many hours, so there will be plenty to come as Lowe responds to questions.
The above points are Reuters headlines, if you would prefer to listen to proceedings direct:
