New Zealand inflation hits 32-year high

New Zealand reported annual inflation of 7.3% in the second quarter, up from 6.9% in the first quarter. The second quarter annual inflation rate was the highest in nearly 32 years. High inflation has become a political issue in New Zealand. In order to ease people's hardships and reduce public anger, the New Zealand government announced on Sunday that it would extend the deadline for lowering gasoline taxes and reducing public transport fares until the end of January next year. Now that the inflation issue has become a major domestic issue in New Zealand, I believe that the New Zealand central bank will not dare to neglect the pace of raising interest rates to suppress inflation. The market now estimates that the RBNZ will raise interest rates by half a percentage point at the next meeting on August 17, and the probability of pushing the official interest rate to 3 percentage points has become a market consensus.