The Australian dollar continues to climb on the back of stronger-than-expected Chinese gross domestic product figures and New Zealand inflation data.

At 1200 AEDT on Tuesday, the Australian dollar was trading at 88.19 US cents, up from 87.79 cents on Monday.

China’s economy grew 7.7 per cent last year, according to official figures, beating economists’ expectations of 7.6 per cent.

Data out of New Zealand on Tuesday showed faster-than-expected inflation with a rise of 0.1 per cent in the December quarter. Economists were expecting a 0.1 per cent fall.

Arab Bank Australia treasury dealer David Scutt said the Chinese GDP figures gave the Australian currency an excuse to push higher.

“We’ve got a lot of speculative short positions out there in the market at the moment and we had something that was relatively more upbeat than what the market was expecting and, hence, that’s why it pushed a bit higher overnight,” Mr Scutt said.

“Today has been much more about the kiwi CPI figure and the relative correlation between their CPI figure and Australia’s.

“That came in a little bit hotter than expected so expectations ahead of our CPI figure tomorrow are now a bit higher than first thought.

“If CPI comes out a little hotter than expected, it reduces the chances that we’ll see a further rate cut from the Reserve Bank of Australia and that lifts yields and lifts the Aussie dollar.”

At 1200 AEDT on Tuesday, the March 2014 10-year bond futures contract was trading at 95.955 (implying a yield of 4.045 per cent), down from 95.970 (4.030 per cent) on Monday.

The March 2014 three-year bond futures contract was at 97.110 (2.890 per cent), down from 97.130 (2.870 per cent).