RBA Minutes: Keeping an Open Mind on Rates

Australia’s central bank repeated it retains the option of reducing interest rates and said a further drop in the currency would aid the economy as resource investment slows, minutes of the Sept. 3 meeting showed.

“Members agreed that the bank should again neither close off the possibility of reducing rates further nor signal an imminent intention to reduce them,” the Reserve Bank of Australia said in notes of the meeting, at which it left its benchmark rate at a record low, released in Sydney today. “Some further decline in the exchange rate would be helpful.”

The meeting was held four days before an election won by Tony Abbott’s coalition, which ousted the Labor government of Kevin Rudd, pledging to cut red tape and lower taxes to boost the $1.5 trillion economy as a China-led mining investment boom crests. Governor Glenn Stevens and his board have lowered borrowing costs by 2.25 percentage points since late 2011 to 2.5 percent as growth slows and unemployment rises.

Bloomberg

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