Reserve Bank keeps interest rates on hold at 4.35 per cent

The Reserve Bank has kept interest rates on hold at 4.35 per cent.

It means rates will remain at this level for another six weeks, until the RBA Board's next meeting in mid-June.

In a statement announcing its decision, the RBA Board said while the economic outlook remained uncertain it will "remain vigilant to upside risks."

"The path of interest rates that will best ensure that inflation returns to target in a reasonable timeframe remains uncertain and the Board is not ruling anything in or out," it said.

"The Board will rely upon the data and the evolving assessment of risks. In doing so, it will continue to pay close attention to developments in the global economy, trends in domestic demand, and the outlook for inflation and the labour market.

In recent weeks, some economists and market commentators had been pressuring the RBA Board to lift rates, arguing recent upside-surprises in inflation could keep inflation higher for longer.

But the RBA Board's decision to keep rates steady follows last week's news that retail spending fell by a surprisingly-large amount in March.

The decline in retail spending in March was the weakest on record, outside of the pandemic period and introduction of the GST, and it prompted other economists to warn about the pressures millions of households were under.

"Australian households are struggling and retail conditions are dire," Callam Pickering, APAC economist at global job site Indeed, warned last week.

"Further tightening in the current environment would leave the nation at clear risk of severe downturn or recession," he said.