The Reserve Bank of India recently had a meeting to discuss its monetary policy.
They decided to keep the repo rate, which is the rate at which banks borrow money from the RBI, unchanged at 6.5%.
This decision was announced by the Governor of the Central Bank, Shaktikanta Das. Many people were hoping for a decrease in interest rates, but unfortunately, that didn’t happen.
The reverse repo rate, which is the rate at which banks lend money to the RBI, was also kept the same at 3.35 percent.
The goal of keeping the repo rate unchanged is to control inflation and support economic growth, especially during uncertain times globally.
This is the seventh time in a row that the repo rate hasn’t changed. This decision was made during the first monetary policy review for the financial year 2024-25.
There will be a total of six such meetings in the new financial year starting from April 1.
The last time the Central Reserve Bank increased the repo rate was in February 2023. Since then, it has remained steady at 6.5 percent.
It’s important to note that banks decide their loan interest rates based on the repo rate.
Additionally, the Central Bank has estimated that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate for 2024-25 will be seven percent, and retail inflation is expected to be around 4.5 percent.
The National Statistics Office (NSO) has revised its estimates for GDP growth rate for the first and second quarters of the current financial year to 8.2 and 8.1 percent respectively.
In the December quarter of the previous financial year, the growth rate was 8.4 percent.
