After three years outside the Reserve Bank's target band, the inflation genie is back in the bottle in New Zealand, down to 2.2 per cent.
On Wednesday, Stats NZ confirmed the consumers price index (CPI) inflation was back under three per cent for the first time since 2021.
The plunge was almost wholly due to offshore prices.
Tradeable inflation dropped 1.6 per cent in the year to September, while non-tradeable, or domestic inflation remained high at 4.9 per cent.
Still, the headline rate of 2.2 per cent in the year to September - and 0.6 per cent for the quarter - is good news for Kiwis, who have suffered through soaring inflation in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Wednesday's figures were widely tipped by economists and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ), which aims to keep inflation between one to three per cent.
ANZ senior economist Miles Workman said "imported and import-competing side of the CPI basket has done most of the heavy lifting in terms of bringing headline inflation back into the target band from its 7.3 per cent peak.
"Lower petrol prices played a key role, but these data also reflect the fact that New Zealand is currently importing broader disinflation from the rest of the world," he said.
Prime Minister Chris Luxon claimed credit for inflation dropping, saying the fiscal strategy to cut public spending played a role.
"We've worked incredibly hard to put financial discipline in place," he said.
"The consequence of that, because of good monetary policy, good fiscal policy, we have now inflation in the band."
Westpac senior economist Satish Ranchhod said the "inflation dragon is back in its cave".
"Inflation is at long last back in the RBNZ's target band, and it looks set to track close to two per cent over the year ahead," he said.
CPI was last in the RBNZ's target band in the year to March 2021.
The lower figure is a green light for the central bank to continue easing interest rates.
After hiking the official cash rate (OCR) to 5.5 per cent for 18 months, effectively engineering an economic slowdown to bring inflation down, the RBNZ at its last two meetings moved the cash rate to 4.75 per cent.
Further cuts have been signalled, including a likely 50 basis points at the year-ending November meeting that would see New Zealand's OCR marginally below Australia's cash rate target of 4.35 per cent.
"The cost-of-living crisis is coming to an end, slowly," Kiwibank chief economist Jarrod Kerr said.
"The RBNZ engineered a long, harsh recession to get inflation back to two per cent. And we're close ... very close.
"The RBNZ can declare victory in the war on inflation."
