SME Times News Bureau | 26 Mar, 2014
Top Reserve Bank of India (RBI) officials met a select set
of bankers on Tuesday ahead of the first bi-monthly monetary policy to be
announced on April 1. The meeting focused on issues pertaining to
non-performing assets (NPAs), restructuring, credit off take, loan pricing and
capital of banks.
On Wednesday, RBI will meet another group of bankers in a
similar fashion.
The central bank raised the repo rate to 8 per cent from
7.75 per cent at its previous monetary policy review on January 28. The annual
rate of inflation, based on the monthly wholesale price index, stood at 4.68
per cent in February, slipping below 5 per cent for the first time in nine
months as onion and potato prices eased.
The general expectation among experts is that key policy
rates will be kept unchanged in the first bi-monthly monetary policy for FY15,
in view of softening inflation.
Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma is hopeful the
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will cut interest rates to boost growth, taking
into account declining inflation.
"We hope they will factor this in," Sharma said Tuesday when
asked whether the RBI would reduce interest rates in view of softening
inflation.
Meanwhile, Ratings agency IcraBSE -0.05 % today said it
expects Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan to hold the key rates on April 1,
as inflation has shown considerable signs of cooling and is sniffing at the
desired levels now.
"Consumer inflation eased to 8.1 per cent in February,
close to the target of 8 per cent for the end of this calendar year as
suggested by the Urjit Patel committee...Therefore, we expect a status quo on
the policy rate in the upcoming policy review," it said in a note.
Speaking about the disadvantages of high inflation last
week, RBI governor Raghuram Rajan had said high inflation is bad. "In the
short-run, there may be a cost to bring down inflation in terms of growth, but
probably in the long-run, bringing down inflation is a good thing," he said.