Mar 10, 2008

Highlights on Third Quarter Review of Annual Statement on Monetary Policy for 2007-08

Highlights on Third Quarter Review of Annual Statement on Monetary Policy for 2007-08

Dr. Y Venugopal Reddy, Governor, Reserve Bank of India today (January 29, 2008) presented the Third Quarter Review of Annual Statement on Monetary Policy for the Year 2007-08.

  • Bank Rate, Reverse Repo Rate, Repo Rate and Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) kept unchanged.
  • The flexibility to conduct overnight or longer term repo including the right to accept or reject tenders under the liquidity adjustment facility (LAF), wholly or partially, is retained.
  • Overall real GDP growth projection for 2007-08 at around 8.5 per cent is retained.
  • The policy endeavour would be to contain inflation close to 5.0 per cent in 2007-08 while conditioning expectations in the range of 4.0-4.5 per cent.
  • While non-food credit has decelerated, growth in money supply and aggregate deposits of scheduled commercial banks continue to expand well above indicative projections.
  • High growth in reserve money is driven by large accretion to RBI's net foreign exchange assets.
  • Liquidity management will assume priority in the conduct of monetary policy through appropriate and timely action.
  • Barring the emergence of any adverse and unexpected developments in various sectors of the economy and keeping in view the current assessment of the economy including the outlook for growth and inflation, the overall stance of monetary policy in the period ahead will broadly continue to be:
    • To reinforce the emphasis on price stability and well-anchored inflation expectations while ensuring a monetary and interest rate environment conducive to continuation of the growth momentum and orderly conditions in financial markets.
    • To emphasise credit quality as well as credit delivery, in particular, for employment-intensive sectors, while pursuing financial inclusion.
    • To monitor the evolving heightened global uncertainties and domestic situation impinging on inflation expectations, financial stability and growth momentum in order to respond swiftly with both conventional and unconventional measures, as appropriate

0 comments: