The official cash rate has been left unchanged by the Reserve Bank of Australia.The Reserve Bank of Australia has left the official interest rate unchanged at 4.5 per cent.Glenn Stevens, governor of the organisation – which last upped the cash level in May, the month in which it later declared home loans were about the right level – predicted that the global economy will ease back to around trade price over the coming year, despite growing faster than this from the start of the year until mid-2010.

He pointed out that Aussie credit growth is fairly subdued and there is not a lot of movement in either direction in terms of asset values.Mr Stevens also noted that that consumer price index inflation has calmed down from its excessive pace of 2008 and been around 2.75 per cent higher throughout the past year and this looked “likely to continue in the next term”.

He added that the current monetary policy level means interest rates for borrowers are near to last decade’s average, but “the board regards this as appropriate for the time being”.”If economic conditions evolve as the board currently expects, it is likely that higher interest rates will be required, at some point, to ensure that inflation remains consistent with the medium-term target.”

In addition, the governor observed that public spending was important to drive demand for a number of quarters, but the impact of this is now less.However, this is in contrast to the latest Commonwealth Bank Business Sales Indicator (BSI), which revealed that the number of debit and credit card transactions at the organisation’s point of sale terminals increased by 0.1 per cent in August.

This reading was the first positive one since November, although there was a BSI decline of 2.7 per cent over the year – the worst since records began six years ago.