RBI's top priority to control inflation: Subbarao

12 Jul 2013 Evaluate

Dashing rate cut hopes in the upcoming monetary policy review, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor D Subbarao has said that the central bank will assess growth, inflation and the external situation before taking a view, while it will give priority to controlling inflation, which still remains high. The RBI governor presented an uncertain outlook for the domestic economy and expressed concerns over the deteriorating macro-economic indicators. Meanwhile, with the RBI and government’s collective efforts, the wholesale price index declined to 4.7 percent in May, however, retail inflation still remain at elevated levels of 9.31 percent.  

The sharp depreciation of the rupee has increased upside risks to WPI inflation and may prompt RBI to revise its inflation estimate upwards. The RBI governor has attributed the decline in rupee value to global factors and said that it is difficult to predict when global conditions affecting the rupee would ease. The Rupee has declined by about 9 percent in the past three months and had recently touched an all time low of 61.21 per dollar. Subbarao also cautioned that country’s current account deficit (CAD) is still high, the CAD has widened to a record high at 4.8 percent of GDP in the last fiscal.

The RBI next monetary policy meet will be held on July 30. In the last policy review in June, the central bank left interest rates unchanged on account of declining value of the rupee, fears of inflation and the high CAD.

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