{"id":96707,"date":"2020-10-09T11:37:13","date_gmt":"2020-10-09T06:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/?p=96707"},"modified":"2020-11-01T17:18:57","modified_gmt":"2020-11-01T11:48:57","slug":"rbi-keeps-key-rates-unchanged-predicts-9-5-gdp-for-2020-21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/latest-news\/rbi-keeps-key-rates-unchanged-predicts-9-5-gdp-for-2020-21\/","title":{"rendered":"RBI keeps key rates unchanged; predicts -9.5% GDP for 2020-21"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Reserve Bank of India\u2019s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) led by Governor Shaktikanta Das on Friday announced that the key interest rates will be kept unchanged in the light of growing inflation. The committee kept the repo rate unchanged at four percent, while the reverse repo rate stood at 3.35 per cent. Das said that it was an unanimous decision by the MPC to keep the rates at existing levels. He added that the reason to maintain its accommodative monetary policy stance was to support growth amid the coronavirus pandemic which is still ongoing in the country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Addressing a press briefing, the RBI Governor said that the country\u2019s GDP would contract by 9.5 per cent due to disruptions caused by COVID-19. He further said that the economy was entering a decisive phase in its fight against the pandemic. He said that the GDP growth might enter a positive zone by the fourth quarter of the fiscal. The decision taken by the MPC was in line with the predictions made by most economists who had expected the central bank to not any make changes in the key rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The MPC\u2019s announcement on monetary policy was postponed this year due to delayed appointments of three external members. It was supposed to be held from September 29. The three external members of MPC comprise of Ashima Goyal, a member of PM Narendra Modi\u2019s economic advisory council, Shashanka Bhide, a senior advisor at think-tank National Council for Applied Economic Research, and Jayanth Varma, a finance and accounting professor at IIM Ahmedabad. The have replaced Chetan Ghate, Pami Dua and Ravindra Dholakia. Instituted by the Government of India under the RBI Act, MPC\u2019s tasks include framing monetary policy with the help of tools like the repo rate, reverse repo rate, bank rate, cash reserve ratio (CRR).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"