The Australian dollar was lower yesterday as the US dollar strengthened after the Group of 20 industrial and developing countries fell short at the weekend of openly criticising governments that seek to deliberately devalue their currencies.
The G20 meeting, held in Moscow, ended with its members pledging to refrain from targeting their currency policies to gain a competitive advantage. Most significantly for Asia, Japan was not singled out for the recent volatility in the yen's exchange rate.
The outcome cleared a path for the US dollar to strengthen against the yen in Asian trading, pressuring other Asian currencies lower in the process, traders said.
At 5pm AEDT the dollar was buying $US1.0295, down US0.69c. Today, currency traders will focus on the release of minutes from the Reserve Bank's last policy meeting. The RBA left the interest rate unchanged last week and is expected to keep the door open to a further cut.
RBA governor Glenn Stevens will also appear before a parliamentary committee on economics on Friday, when he is expected to reinforce the message that rates may be cut further if the domestic economy weakens.
