{"id":492258,"date":"2026-02-20T11:17:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T11:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/492258\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T11:17:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T11:17:09","slug":"reserve-bank-governor-warns-businesses-against-passing-on-higher-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/492258\/","title":{"rendered":"Reserve Bank governor warns businesses against passing on higher costs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dr<\/p>\n

\nReserve Bank governor Anna Breman.
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Samuel Rillstone\n<\/p>\n

The Reserve Bank governor has warned businesses against trying to pass higher prices on to households.<\/p>\n

Anna Breman said inflation expectations have been rising among economic forecasters and businesses – something she is not happy about.<\/p>\n

Speaking at a Business Canterbury event in Christchurch on Friday, she said firms trying to hike prices face an uphill battle.<\/p>\n

“In our view, given that wage growth is still subdued, given that the labour market is starting to increase – but households will want to see more of that – we think it will be very difficult for firms to pass on big price increases.”<\/p>\n

Anna Breman said households are still struggling<\/a> with cost-of-living pressures and a weak jobs market, and higher prices will weigh on consumer spending.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, she warned that volatility – from geopolitical tensions to developments in artificial intelligence – could still throw up surpises for inflation.<\/p>\n

She said the Monetary Policy Committee will stay responsive to those risks, but will not overreact to short-term volatility.<\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reserve Bank governor Anna Breman. Photo: RNZ \/ Samuel Rillstone The Reserve Bank governor has warned businesses against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":492259,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,1590,63,99,1589,164,44,1591,1588,1586,1587],"class_list":["post-492258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-audio","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-current-affairs","tag-economy","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=492258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/492259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}