Inflation of 2.2 per cent. Interest rates at 1.5 per cent. It's a scenario that seems too good to be true for Australians struggling with the cost of living crisis, but it's a reality in another part of the world.
While undoubtedly a global issue, some nations aren't feeling the pinch as much as others. Switzerland is renowned for its stable consumer price index (CPI) – while Japan's is also under four per cent.
So what separates these nations from Australia? And what can we learn about taming inflation – without killing the family budget.
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Inflation in Switzerland
When CPI in Switzerland hit 3.5 per cent last August, it was the highest it had been in the country in almost 30 years. Australia's, by comparison, was 7 per cent for the March quarter.
Switzerland's current mark is 2.2 per cent – far lower than Australia and also the rest of Europe – and the nation is often sheltered from rising inflation due to a number of factors.
The strong Swiss Franc allows the nation to purchase goods at relatively low prices, insulating it from import inflation, while high levels of household wealth and government controls on some sectors also play a role.
"It's a very rich country," RMIT associate professor of economics Bilgehan Karabay told 9news.com.au.
"If you look at household essentials – where we see around the world that most of inflation is – household essentials constitute only a small portion of Swiss households' income.
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"If you look carefully, you can see the largest item in household income is healthcare costs… it constitutes 17 per cent of CPI.
"So essential price increases do not affect households that much.
"On the other hand, healthcare costs affect it, however the government pressured healthcare companies, insurance companies, in order to lower premiums. This helped Switzerland keep inflation low."
Helping further is the country's energy supply. While others have been particularly vulnerable to rising power prices on the back of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Switzerland hasn't had that issue.
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"It has hydropower capacity; it can produce 60 per cent of its own energy production needs," Karabay said.
"They have not been affected as much as some European countries regarding rising prices of oil, gas and coal.
"On top of that, Switzerland regulates electricity prices – and in general if you look at Switzerland and compare it to Europe, it has the highest proportion of regulated goods and services.
"So in that sense, the market is much more stable… it's not as volatile whenever prices change."
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Inflation in Japan
Japan is another case entirely. Inflation currently sits at 3.5 per cent, and even though the cash rate is negative, at -0.1 per cent, spending remains low, putting the nation in a "liquidity trap".
"People are not spending at all. They're not doing anything. They're not investing. They're just hoarding," Karabay said
"There is weak household consumption, and this has been historically the case for Japan. They're not big spenders.
"This is quite different than, for example, the Australian economy or the US economy which are basically consumption economies.
"But Japan is not like that – people like to save."
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Add in sluggish wage growth in a workforce where more than a third of employees are part-time or contract workers, and the incentive to spend only decreases.
However, similarly to Switzerland with medical cost controls, COVID-era price limitations are playing a part in Japan.
"In Japan, the important elements were gas, electricity and wheat prices," Karaby said.
Regulations permit gas and electricity prices to only increase gradually, while wheat costs are also controlled.
"Japan is a wheat importer, and the government imports the wheat but the resale price in the country is fixed for six months," Karaby said.
"As a result, for example when the Russian invasion of Ukraine happened, they were not affected that much by increasing wheat prices."
So what inflation lessons can Australia learn?
While noting there's no one, single underlying cause of inflation across different nations, Karaby said Australia could look to emulate Japan and Switzerland's approach to regulating prices in vulnerable parts of the economy – in our case, the housing market.
"One thing I might think of is proactive government policy in targeted sectors… In Australia, I think the part that is very vulnerable is the housing sector," he said.
"There could be some redistributive policy that can be implemented, for example, active government policy like a short-term rent freeze."
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Karaby said any such move would need to be clearly outlined as a short-term measure, not a permanent one, but could also apply to different areas of the housing market.
He suggested the possibility of pausing mortgage repayments, or taxing high-income earners and redistributing some of those takings to poorer families – but admitted while there's an economic case to be made, any such policy would be a hard sell politically.
"It's a bit of a contentious topic in Australia because the housing market is very sensitive," Karaby said.
"It's easy to specify a policy but it is hard to implement a policy… they can't do anything quickly on that because they can have negative (political) effects in the future."
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