MNI BRIEF: RBA Comfortable With Inflation Over 3%, Says Lowe

The Reserve Bank of Australia is comfortable for inflation to run at over 3% for a period, even though this was above its 2% to 3% target range, according to central bank Governor Philip Lowe.

Appearing before a Parliamentary Standing Committee on Economics on Friday, Lowe said that once inflation moved into the lower target range the RBA would "not say job done."

He said the central bank would be comfortable for inflation to be "higher than 2.5% or even 3% for a while."

The RBA has said that it would not increase interest rates form the current record low 0.10% until inflation was "sustainably" in the target range, and that it does not see this happening until 2024.

Trimmed mean inflation, the measure closely watched by the RBA, is running at 1.6%. Lowe said the RBA forecast was now for inflation to be 1.75% in 2022 and 2.25% in 2023.