India's central bank keeps interest rates unchanged

Mumbai, Dec 1: The Indian central bank on Tuesday kept its short-term lending and borrowing rates unchanged, in line with expectations, balancing its policy action between a comforting, 7.4 percent economic growth for the second quarter of this fiscal and a creeping inflation.

In its fifth bi-monthly monetary policy review of the current fiscal conducted by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan here, the repurchase rate at which short-term credit is extended to commercial banks was left unchanged at 6.75 percent.

Accordingly, the reverse repurchase rate, or the interest paid by the central bank for short-term borrowings, also stood frozen at 5.75. percent. The statutory liquidity ratio and cash reserve ratio that banks have to keep in liquid assets and government securities also remained intact.

The central bank also kept its overall growth projection for 2015-16 at 7.4 percent and said the inflation target of 6 percent in January next year as set out in the previous policy update also was within reach, albeit with a slight downside risk.

IANS