Australia central bank deployed its remaining conventional interest-rate ammunition and moved to additional policy measures to try to support an economy spiraling toward its first recession in almost 30 years.

Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe cut the cash rate to 0.25%, its effective lower bound, in an emergency meeting Thursday Sydney. He said in a statement the board “will not increase the cash rate target until progress is being made towards full employment and it is confident that inflation will be sustainably within the 2–3% target band.”

The central bank is pushing emergency stimulus as it joins the government in a fiscal-monetary tandem in trying to keep firms open and workers in jobs as efforts to contain the coronavirus outbreak shut parts of the economy. Prime Minister Scott Morrison is developing a follow-up spending package to expand on the A$17.6 billion ($10.2 billion) program announced last week.

Source : Bloomberg