Now Reading: RBI holds repo rate at 5.25% and lifts FY27 growth forecast
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RBI holds repo rate at 5.25% and lifts FY27 growth forecast
The Reserve Bank of India's Monetary Policy Committee unanimously kept the repo rate unchanged at 5.25 per cent on 5 August, maintaining its neutral stance for a seventh straight meeting. The committee…
The Reserve Bank of India's Monetary Policy Committee unanimously kept the repo rate unchanged at 5.25 per cent on 5 August, maintaining its neutral stance for a seventh straight meeting. The committee raised its FY27 real GDP growth forecast to 6.7 per cent from 6.6 per cent, while lowering its headline inflation projection to 5 per cent from 5.1 per cent and estimating core inflation near 4.3 per cent. Retail inflation had risen to an 18-month high of 4.4 per cent in June from 3.9 per cent in May, breaching the committee's 4 per cent target for the first time since January 2025. The RBI said inflation was expected to rise further before easing, with Governor Sanjay Malhotra pointing to food and fuel prices behind an expected peak in the third quarter, against a broader backdrop of a possible El Nino effect, higher crude prices and risks from the West Asia conflict. The next MPC meeting is scheduled for 5 to 7 October 2026.
Indian Opinion Analysis
The MPC's unanimous decision to leave rates at 5.25 per cent extends its neutral stance to a seventh straight meeting, though Governor Malhotra himself named food and fuel prices as drivers of an expected third-quarter inflation peak. Retail inflation's rise to an 18-month high of 4.4 per cent in June, breaching the committee's 4 per cent target for the first time since January 2025, is the pressure behind that flagged peak. The October meeting, when the committee will have two more months of figures on the monsoon, crude prices and the West Asia conflict, is the clearer test of whether this outlook holds.
Source: TheHinduBusinessLine
This brief was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
