ICICI to wait for policy signals

Mumbai, Apr 17: India's largest private lender, ICICI Bank today said it will 'wait and watch' till the RBI's monetary policy and then decide on increasing lending rates. ICICI Bank Managing Director and CEO K V Kamath said, ''Liquidity is flush, but inflation is high, so the interest rates should increase, but I won't speculate. I will wait for policy signals and market conditions,'' Kamath said.

When asked about RBI's monetary measures and the country's growth momentum, Mr Kamath said, ''So far I do not see any major industrial slowdown, indeed, there was a slight slow-down in some industries like auto and light engineering industry, but there was no slow-down, which went over the board. In investment pipeline also there was no slow-down.'' Nevertheless, high inflation is expected to lower the growth rate to 7.5 per cent to 8 per cent during the current financial year, Mr Kamath said, stressing that India will continue to be among the high growth economies.

UNI