The Reserve Bank of New Zealand this morning cut its official cash rate by 50 basis points, to 2.50 per cent, thus reversing the two hikes it made around mid-2010, and citing the Christchurch earthquake and the already weak level of GDP growth as reasons to again pursue a looser monetary policy."Even before the earthquake, GDP growth was much weaker than expected through the second half of 2010," the RBNZ said in a statement. While the RBNZ acknowledged there were some signs of a recovery early in 2011, it sees this as "more than offset by the Christchurch earthquake."The RBNZ also acknowledged inflationary pressures generated by the rebuilding of Canterbury but said that given monetary policy's focus on the medium-term trend in inflation, it will be appropriate for "monetary policy to be stimulatory during reconstruction."It is difficult to know how large or how long lasting this impact will be, but there is a risk that the downturn is quite severe," RBNZ said.Significantly, RBNZ didn't provide an outlook for interest rates and also omitted the table on GDP and inflation forecasts that usually accompanies the monetary policy statement.