TORONTO (Reuters) -Below are some key quotes from a news conference by Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem and Senior Deputy Governor Carolyn Rogers on Wednesday after the central bank held its key policy rate steady at 2.75%.
MACKLEM ON UNCERTAINTY
“One of the messages today is, it’s hard to be as forward looking as usual when you’ve got an unusual amount of uncertainty. And that’s why we presented three scenarios. And the reason we presented three scenarios is, against the background of unusual uncertainty, we need to be thinking more about the risks. So as we’re thinking about policy, we’re not thinking about a single forecast. We’re thinking of a range of scenarios.
MACKLEM ON FUTURE RATE DECISIONS
“We’re going to take our decisions one decision at a time, and our future decisions are going to depend what happens in the future… I think the first message is, the situation hasn’t changed that much since our last decision. We continue to proceed carefully. Given the unusual amount of uncertainty, we’re continuing to put more weight on the risks, and we’re ready to respond to new information.
MACKLEM ON CORE MEASURES
“One of the reasons why we held the policy rate unchanged is because, yes, we have seen some additional pressures in underlying inflation. Core measures, the trim mean, trim median, have been running around 3. If you look at a broader range of core measures, they’ve all moved up. … So, yes, that has got our attention. And, going forward, we are going to be watching closely what happens with those pressures and underlying inflation.
MACKLEM ON CORE INFLATION UNWINDING
“Some of the factors that may be causing that increase should unwind. The Canadian dollar appreciated after depreciating. That should pull in part. … Wage growth has decelerated, and the economy is in excess supply. We think the economy contracted in the second quarter. So those things are all going to put downward pressure.”
(Reporting by Fergal Smith, Nivedita Balu and Anna Mehler Paperny; Editing by Frank McGurty)
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