Australia yesterday announced its fifth rate hike since October and said borrowing costs would continue to rise as growth and inflation return to normal after the global crisis.
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) lifted the official cash rate 25 basis points to 4.25 percent, underlining confidence that Australia has seen off the downturn unscathed and must now work to moderate prices.
“The board judges that with growth likely to be around trend and inflation close to target over the coming year, it is appropriate for interest rates to be closer to average,” RBA Governor Glenn Stevens said in a statement.
“Today’s decision is a further step in that process,” he said.
Australia was the first developed economy to lift rates after the world’s biggest financial shock since the Great Depression, raising them 25 basis points to 3.25 percent in October and four times since.
The Reserve Bank is now unwinding its emergency cuts of late 2008 and last year, when interest rates were slashed by 425 basis points to a five-decade low of 3 percent as the world economy tanked.
“Australia’s terms of trade are rising, adding to incomes and fostering a buildup in investment in the resources sector,” Stevens said.
“The rate of unemployment appears to have peaked at a much lower level than earlier expected,” he said.
“The process of business sector de-leveraging is moderating, with ... indications that lenders are starting to become more willing to lend to some borrowers,” he said.
Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan said rate rises were inevitable given the country’s performance over the past year, when it experienced only a mild downturn and recovered quickly thanks to government stimulus and booming resources exports.
“We have the strongest growing advanced economy,” Swan told reporters. “If you look around the world you will seeing that what has occurred in Australia is something very special.”
The government announced more than A$70 billion (US$62.9 billion) in emergency stimulus last year, including straight cash hand-outs and grants for first-home buyers and infrastructure spending.
Unemployment of 5.3 percent — well below the peak of 8.5 percent which was projected at the height of the crisis — and 2.7 percent growth last year have seen Australia’s economy tagged “the wonder from Down Under.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique