Australian inflation remains too high but its path lower is following countries like the US and Canada, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said Sunday.

“We’re confident about the future trajectory of inflation, but we’re not complacent about it,” Chalmers said, speaking on the Sunday Agenda television show

Compared with the rest of the world, “it’s really important that you remember that our inflation peaked later and lower than most of those other countries,” he said. “But our experience has been very similar otherwise.”

Fears the Reserve Bank of Australia could resume its tightening policy at the Aug 5-6 meeting have gained momentum after a partial gauge of consumer prices showed inflation accelerated to 4% in May, well above the central bank’s 2-3% target.

“We saw in the US, for example, that inflation ticked up a couple of times earlier in the year before it ticked down again. We saw in Canada last week, in fact, that core and headline inflation both ticked up. It’s ticking up in the euro area as well,” Chalmers said.

“It doesn’t always moderate in a straight line, it zigs and zags on the way down.”

  - Bloomberg