英语文摘：Australia's interest rate rise a matter of time: RBA

SYDNEY, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- Australia's interest rates rise is possibly on the horizon, with board minutes from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) released Tuesday, saying that it "could not wait indefinitely" due to rising inflationary pressures.

Minutes from the latest RBA monetary policy board meeting, taken on October 5 and released on Tuesday, said that while the overall global outlook was broadly unchanged since the RBA board's previous meeting, interest rates would need to rise "at some point ".

A gradual tightening in resource utilisation meant that inflationary pressures would strengthen, the minutes said.

The minutes revealed that the decision to keep the cash rate on hold at 4.5 percent, taken at the October 5 meeting, was finely balanced.

Board members decided to leave the cash rate unchanged after accepting that the economy was expected to continue growing at trend in the near term, credit growth had softened and the rise in the exchange rate would effectively be "tightening financial conditions at the margin".

Overall, they concluded that it would be "appropriate to hold the cash rate steady for the time being," until evaluating further information at the next meeting on November 2.

The board noted that, despite the release of unemployment figures showing a 5.1 percent unemployment rate in August, there had been a relatively limited amount of economic data released over the past month.

The minutes also noted that a slowdown in the pace of household borrowing had been accompanied by a cooling in the established housing market, and that the borrowing slowdown was a "welcome development".