In particular, statements that were unexpectedly “hawkish” in tone - that is, statements that seemed to indicate that future policies might involve higher rates than previously thought - resulted in increases in year-ahead policy expectations of between 12 and 16 basis points on average, whereas “dovish” statements led to similar decreases in rate expectations.
We target the inflation rate and not any other economic variable and currently our key task is to maintain CPIX inflation – that is headline inflation less mortgage interest costs – within a range of between 6 to 3 per cent. Since September 2003, CPIX inflation has been contained within this range and has averaged 4, 0 per cent for the past two years.