SYDNEY, Dec. 1 (Xinhua) -- The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) kept the country's official interest rate on hold at a historic low of 0.1 percent on Tuesday at a meeting of the bank's board members.
A statement released shortly after by RBA governor Philip Lowe suggested the board was adopting a wait-and-see approach as the better than expected COVID-19 economic recovery continued.
"In Australia, the economic recovery is underway and recent data has generally been better than expected," Lowe said.
"This is good news, but the recovery is still expected to be uneven and drawn out and it remains dependent on significant policy support."
Other recently introduced monetary policy initiatives were maintained at their standing levels, mainly the purchasing of government bonds and a program of low interest funding for banks.
Unemployment was expected to remain an issue and was forecast to be as high as 6 percent until at least the end of 2022, contributing to subdued increases in wages and prices over coming years.
"Employment growth was again strong in October, although the unemployment rate increased to 7 percent as more people rejoined the workforce," Lowe said.
RBA predictions showed GDP would not return to a pre-pandemic level until the end of 2021. Enditem
