CANBERRA, Oct. 28 (Xinhua) -- Australia's annual rate of inflation spiked to a six-month high of 4.3 percent in September, according to official data released on Wednesday.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) said that the consumer price index rose by 4.3 percent in the 12 months to September, up from 4.0 percent in August and the highest figure since March.
It said that the annual trimmed mean, a measure of underlying inflation preferred by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), rose from 3.5 percent in August to 3.6 percent in September.
Economists from the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the nation's largest bank, had forecast that headline inflation would rise to 4.2 percent in September.
Rachael McCririck, head of prices statistics at the ABS, said that a 5.2 percent rise in housing prices year-on-year was the biggest contributor to annual inflation in September, followed by transport prices, which rose by 8.7 percent due to higher fuel prices.
"On a monthly basis, Automotive fuel prices rose 9.4 percent in September, compared to a rise of 14.8 percent in August. This was driven by higher world oil prices," McCririck said.
The data was released ahead of the RBA Monetary Policy Board's next meeting to consider interest rates at the start of November.
At its previous meeting late in September, the board voted unanimously to raise the cash rate target by 0.25 percentage points for the fourth time in 2026 to a 15-year high of 4.6 percent, citing the inflationary impacts of the conflict in the Middle East.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that the chances of another rate hike in November rose from 60 percent to 79 percent following the release of the latest inflation data. ■
