RIYADH: Spain approached its pre-pandemic tourism levels with 7.5 million visitors in June. More than twice as many tourists visited Spain in June than in the same month last year and they spent almost three times as much during their stay, National Statistics Institute data showed on Tuesday. The 7.5 million visitors in June spent close to €9 billion ($9.2 billion). Before the pandemic put a halt to travel in 2020, the country received a total of 38.2 million tourists in 2019, with 8.8 million visiting in June. Australia’s central bank hikes rates Australia’s central bank on Tuesday raised interest rates for a fourth month running, but tempered guidance on further hikes as it forecast faster inflation but also a slowdown in the economy. Wrapping up its August policy meeting, the Reserve Bank of Australia lifted its cash rate by 50 basis points to 1.85 percent, marking an eye-watering 175 basis points of hikes since May in the most drastic tightening since the early 1990s. Yet, RBA Gov. Philip Lowe also made the outlook for policy more conditional. UK house prices rise at slowest pace in a year British house prices rose in July at the slowest monthly pace in a year and the market is likely to slow further as the cost-of-living squeeze tightens and the Bank of England keeps on raising interest rates, mortgage lender Nationwide said on Tuesday. House prices last month were 0.1 percent higher than in June when they rose by 0.2 percent. It was the weakest increase since July of last year and was below the median forecast in a Reuters poll of economists for an increase of 0.3 percent. In annual terms, prices were 11 percent higher than in July 2021, speeding up from growth of 10.7 percent in June but weaker than expected by all economists in the Reuters poll. S. Korea inflation near 24-year high South Korea’s consumer inflation sped up to an almost 24-year high in July, data showed on Tuesday, but other figures indicated the rate of price rises may be near a peak. Signs of economic slowdown, meanwhile, sent bond yields tumbling. Bond yields were also pushed lower by a central bank comment that the pick-up in the annual inflation rate to 6.3 percent in July from 6 percent in June was what it had expected when raising interest rates by an unusually big margin last month. With input from Reuters