Australia’s consumer price index rose 4% year-on-year in August

China News Service, Sydney, September 30 (Reporter Bo Wenwen) Data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on September 30 showed that the country's consumer price index (CPI) increased by 4% year-on-year in August, an increase of 0.5 percentage points higher than in July.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics said that housing and transportation prices were the top two factors driving the year-on-year increase in CPI in August, with year-on-year increases of 5.7% and 5.6% respectively. The increase in housing prices is mainly driven by the increase in the price of new homes and electricity prices. Among them, builders pass on the increase in material and labor costs to the selling price, pushing up the price of new homes. The rise in international oil prices and the end of the Australian federal government's fuel consumption tax reduction measures in early August have jointly pushed vehicle fuel prices up.

The trimmed-average inflation rate, which measures underlying inflation, has remained at 3.6% for three consecutive months. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that the year-on-year increase in CPI in August was slightly lower than economists expected. After the data was released, financial market expectations for the Reserve Bank of Australia (Central Bank) to raise interest rates again in November dropped.

The day before the data was released, the Reserve Bank of Australia announced its fourth interest rate hike this year, raising the benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points to 4.6%, the highest level in the past 15 years.

Australian Treasurer Chalmers said on September 30 that rising fuel costs and the fading effects of last year's energy subsidies have pushed overall inflation to expand year-on-year. The conflict in the Middle East has intensified Australia's original inflation pressure. He said that the government is taking measures such as tax cuts and lowering drug costs to ease the pressure on people's living costs.