News live: IMF forecasts Australia to experience ‘drawn-out’ inflation; measles alert for Sydney

By Calla Wahlquist · The Guardian World

Case confirmed in a person recently returned from Thailand. Follow updates live Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast The International Monetary Fund says Australia is “projected to see some drawn-out persistence in above-target inflation”, as economists and investors bet the RBA will be forced to hike interest rates this year. Unemployment figures on Thursday followed by consumer price data the following Wednesday will help determine whether the Reserve Bank will deliver a hike on 3 February. Remarkably, current projections are broadly unchanged from a year earlier, as the global economy shakes off the immediate impact of the tariff shock. This masks underlying fragilities tied to the concentration of investment in the tech sector. And the negative growth effects of trade disruptions are likely to build up over time. Continue reading...