RBI MPC Meet 2023 Live: Experts expect the the repo rate to be retained at 6.5 per cent.
RBI Monetary Policy October 2023 Updates: After the policy announcement, the RBI governor will also address a press conference which will be telecast at 12:00 pm on Friday
RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das will today announce the Monetary Policy Committee’s decision at 10 am. The RBI MPC’s three meeting ends today. After the policy announcement, the RBI governor will also address a press conference which will be telecast at 12:00 pm on Friday. Experts expect the repo rate to be retained at 6.5 per cent.
Apart from announcing MPC’s decision on the repo rate, reverse repo rate and other policy rates, Das will also discuss the current domestic as well as global economic situation.
Despite moderation in the vegetable prices, the headline CPI inflation still remained beyond the RBI upper tolerance limit of 6 per cent at 6.83% in August 2023. This is however significantly lower as compared with 7.44% in July.
Experts said the central bank will likely maintain a precautionary stance because of the inflationary pressure arising from external factors such as rising crude prices and the Indian currency, which is at an all-time low.
In the previous monetary policy review in August, the RBI MPC had kept the repo rate unchanged at 6.5 per cent. This was the third time in a row that the central bank paused the key interest rates.
The RBI Governor-headed six-member Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) began its deliberations on October 4 and is scheduled to announce the bi-monthly monetary policy review on Friday.
The Reserve Bank has been mandated by the government to ensure the Consumer Price Index (CPI) based retail inflation remains at 4 per cent, with a margin of 2 per cent on either side. The retail inflation was 6.83 per cent in August, above the RBI’s comfort level. In an off-cycle meeting in May 2022, the MPC raised the policy rate by 40 basis points, and it was followed by rate hikes of varying sizes, in each of the five subsequent meetings till February 2023. The repo rate was raised by 250 basis points cumulatively between May 2022 and February 2023.
The MPC consists of three external members and three officials of the RBI. The external members of the panel are Shashanka Bhide, Ashima Goyal, and Jayanth R. Varma. Besides Governor Shaktikanta Das, the other RBI officials in MPC are Rajiv Ranjan (Executive Director) and Michael Debabrata Patra (Deputy Governor).
