The Canadian dollar strengthened to around 1.31 per USD mark, the strongest since September last year, after the Bank of Canada delivered another 25bps increase in interest rates as expected and reinforced its commitment to restore price stability. The central bank also revised higher its growth forecast for this year to 1.8% from 1.4% and pushed back its expectations for getting inflation back to the 2% target by the middle of 2025. In May, Canada's headline inflation rate moderated to 3.4% and the core reading slowed more than expected to 3.7%. At the same time, the US dollar weakened to levels not seen in over two months, after softer inflation readings for June eased bets on the need of more interest rate increases by the Fed beyond July.