Sept 3 (Reuters) - Australian shares rose on Friday, as Prime Minister Scott Morrison flagged a quicker reopening after a vaccine swap deal with Britain, with heavyweight miners tracking higher iron ore prices contributing to most of the gains.
The S&P/ASX 200 index climbed 0.5% and finished the session at 7,522.9.
Morrison announced a swap deal with Britain for 4 million doses of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines, and said he was looking to convince states and territories to stick to a national COVID-19 reopening plan.
More than half the country’s 25 million people are under stay-at-home orders, with Sydney, Melbourne and the national capital Canberra under prolonged lockdowns.
Investors looked through a plunge in Australian retail sales due to lockdowns in New South Wales and Victoria as ‘transitory’, Jeffrey Halley, a market analyst at OANDA said.
Next week, the Reserve Bank of Australia’s policy meeting will be in focus to see whether it will delay tapering plans, Halley said.
36 of 37 analysts polled by Reuters expect the cash rate to stay at 0.1%, but more are uncertain on whether it will delay a taper of its A$5 billion in weekly bond buying.
