Increase in policy rates will bring year-end inflation to a comfortable level of 6-7%: FM

26 Jul 2011 Evaluate

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee supports the Reserve Bank of India (RBI’s) decision of increasing the short term leading and borrowing rates by 50 basis points. In reaction to the RBI First Quarter Review of Monetary Policy 2011-12, Finance Minister said that by announcing a 50 basis point increase in the policy repo rate, raising it from 7.50% to 8.0%, RBI has sought to give a strong signal to further moderate inflation and check inflationary expectations.

Since March 2010, RBI has increased its key policy rates for 11 times, in order to control inflation however it has been fail to do so. The headline inflation measured by the wholesale price index (WPI) has remained about the 9% for the April-June 2011, and this stubbornly high inflation had adversely affected the growth of industrial production. Headline inflation for April, May and June was 9.74%, 9.06% and 9.44% respectively.

Finance minister expects that RBI’s aggressive monetary standing on inflation will reduce in the second half of the current fiscal, and with this policy adjustment, the government will be able to get back to a more comfortable inflation situation that takes us to the year-end inflation level of 6 to 7%.

The current high inflation is due to the hardening of non-food manufacturing inflation, food inflation has been moderating from last few months, it has moderated to 8.38% in June from 16.68% January, whereas the headline inflation continues to be around 9 per cent. However, by accepting the signs of moderation in the economic growth, finance minister said, notwithstanding some slowdown of GDP growth in the first quarter of 2011-12, as reflected in the some indicators including the IIP and moderation in the growth of interest-sensitive sectors, the overall GDP growth for 2011-12 so far is in line with the momentum attained in 2010-11.

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