CANBERRA, June 24 (Xinhua) — Australia’s annual rate of inflation fell to 4.0 percent in May, according to official data, defying economists’ expectations of a rise.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) said on Wednesday that the consumer price index (CPI) rose by 4.0 percent in the year to May, down from 4.2 percent in April and 4.6 percent in March.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported earlier on Wednesday that economists were predicting that CPI growth would rise to 4.3 percent in the 12 months to May.
Despite the fall in headline inflation, the ABS said that the annual trimmed mean, a measure of underlying inflation, was 3.6 percent in May compared to 3.4 percent in April.
The latest projections released by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), the nation’s central bank, in May forecast that annual CPI growth would hit 4.8 percent in June and the annual trimmed mean would rise to 3.8 percent before falling in the second half of the year.
Rachael McCririck, ABS head of prices statistics, said that housing, food and non-alcoholic beverages and transport were the biggest drivers of CPI growth in the 12 months to May.
Automotive fuel prices were down 11.9 percent in May, she said, as a result of falling oil prices and a move by federal, state and territory governments to cut the fuel sales tax by half for three months from April 1.
