MNI BRIEF: RBA's Lowe Says Pause In April Depends On Data

Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Philip Lowe underlined his willingness to pause at the April 4 meeting depending on the flow of economic data over the next few weeks.

"We've done a lot in a short period of time and at some point it's going to be appropriate to sit still and assess the collective effects of that," Lowe said in a Q&A session after a speech on Wednesday. (See MNI: RBA's Lowe Says Closer To Pause, Rates Are Restrictive)

"Before our next board meeting we'll have important data on employment, we'll have another monthly inflation indicator, we'll have more detail on retail spending and the business surveys, so they're four really important pieces of data that we'll look at at our next board meeting."

"If they collectively suggest the right thing is to pause then we'll do that, but if they suggest that we need to keep going then we'll do that. So we've got a completely open mind about what happens at the next board meeting."

Governor Lowe said the RBA had studied whether it would be possible to steer inflation back to its 2-3% inflation target before mid-2025, but concluded the impact on the labour market would be too high.

"Our judgement, at least at the moment, is the benefits we would get from getting inflation back to 3% six months earlier at the cost of a lot of job losses isn't worth it. "