WELLINGTON (Reuters) - New Zealand central bank's view is that interest rates would remain where they are for the foreseeable future, a senior official said, hosing down expectations of another cut and sending the currency briefly higher.
"Our central view is that New Zealand’s interest rates will remain broadly around current levels for the foreseeable future," Reserve Bank of New Zealand assistant governor Christian Hawkesby said in a speech delivered in Tokyo on May 30 but released by the central bank on Wednesday.
"However, we need to be ready to adapt to changing conditions, to meet our objectives even when confronted with unforeseen developments," he said.
Hawkesby made the remarks at the Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies in Tokyo.
The New Zealand dollar rose 0.3% to $0.6636 after the comments were published by the RBNZ, before settling at $0.6624.
RBNZ cut its official cash rate (OCR) by 25 basis points to an all-time trough of 1.50 percent last month.
Some analysts expect RBNZ to cut rates again in the coming months while others think it would hold for now.
Hawkesby said the bank decided to cut the OCR by 25 basis points in May to "provide a more balanced outlook for interest rates".
The bank's next OCR meeting is on June 26.
(Reporting by Praveen Menon; Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Sam Holmes)
