Pressure on the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) appears to have eased after being shown by readings of inflation data that slowed in the second quarter.
Data published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed that the consumer price index (CPI) rose 0.8% in the second quarter, the smallest increase since the third quarter of 2021 and below market forecasts of 1.0%.
The annual rate shows that the CPI slowed to 6% from 7% and also missed the expected 6.2%.
Meanwhile in June, inflation met expectations by increasing to 5.4% from 5.6% recorded the previous month.
This decrease was expected by Governor Philip Lowe who said the central bank would go to the data after raising interest rates 12 times in the past 15 months.
This may ease some of the pressure on the RBA to keep raising interest rates.
Even so, analysts believe that this data will give the central bank some more time to keep interest rates at a higher level.
The current rate of inflation is also still far from the RBA's target range of 2-3% which is currently projected to return to target by mid-2025.
Currency reaction saw the Aussie dollar plunge following the release of the data to trade 0.4% lower at 0.6763 against the USD.
