This was the case globally, following a long period of low and stable consumer price inflation.
This meant that the Committee, like many of our peer central banks, needed to supplement reductions in our preferred OCR policy tool with other forms of monetary easing that would further lower longer-term interest rates and generate aggregate demand.3 Fortunately for us, we had been preparing for the use of alternative monetary policy tools in the lead up to this unanticipated event.4 Figure 1 - COVID-19 additional spending/foregone revenue by country (to October 2021) % GDP 30  25  20  15  10  5  0  Source: IMF Database of Fiscal Policy Responses to COVID-19 (to October 2021)  ____________ Reserve Bank of New Zealand (2020, 30 March).