Inflation Goes Astray in New Zealand
- Consumer prices set to rise at slowest annual pace since 2016
- Markets aren’t expecting interest-rate hike until next year
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New Zealand’s new central bank governor has inherited an early headache as inflation looks set to slump toward the bottom of his target.
Consumer prices are tipped to rise just 1.1 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier in Thursday’s scheduled release, economists say -- well short of the midpoint of Adrian Orr’s 1-3 percent goal. It compares with a 1.6 percent reading for the previous three months and would be the slowest annual pace since the third quarter of 2016.