RBI Governor meets FM ahead of August policy review

Source: PTI

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan today called on Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and is believed to have discussed various issues including current macroeconomic situation. Rajan's meeting with the Finance Minister comes ahead of the bi-monthly monetary policy to be announced on August 4. There is pressure on RBI to cut rate to boost economic growth. However, RBI has said that it would watch out for the data, including inflation, and the monsoon progress before any change in its policy rates. While retail inflation in June rose to an 8-month high of 5.4%, the overall Wholesale Price Index (WPI)-based inflation was (-)2.4% in the same month. RBI mostly tracks the consumer price index based retail inflation for its monetary policy decisions, and its next review is due on August 4. It would also wait for banks to pass on the benefit of three rate cuts during the year. RBI has cut policy rate thrice during 2015. The total reduction has been 0.75% while banks have passed on an average of 0.3% to customers. Last month, RBI cut the repo rate (short-term lending rate) from 7.5% to 7.25%, but left all other policy tools like cash reserve ratio unchanged at 4% and statutory liquidity ratio at 21.5%.      

July 21, 2015 | 7:22 pm IST.