Australia's annual inflation rate jumped sharply to 4.6% in March, up from 3.7% the previous month, marking the fastest pace of consumer price growth in two and a half years and setting the stage for a likely interest rate rise by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) next week. The surge was driven primarily by a record 32.8% monthly rise in fuel prices — the largest single-month increase since the Australian Bureau of Statistics began tracking the series in 2017 — following the outbreak of war in the Middle East and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical passage through which a significant share of the world's oil and commodities flows.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers warned that the March figures represent only the beginning of the shock, saying inflation