Cooling inflation in July suggests RBA will keep rates unchanged

Australia's weighted CPI annual rate in July was 3.5%, slightly higher than the 3.4% expected by economists. The adjusted core index average rose 3.8%, higher than 4.1% last month. Australia's inflation index cooled in July, suggesting that price pressures began to ease in the current quarter and supporting the RBA's reason for keeping interest rates unchanged. Economist James McIntyre said, "At the meeting on September 24, CPI data may become the focus of the central bank's deliberations along with the second quarter GDP data. We expect the RBA to remain unchanged and maintain a tightening bias to ensure that inflation expectations are controlled." (Jinshi)