RBI holds rates steady, sees economic recovery taking root
MUMBAI (Reuters) – The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) left key interest rates unchanged on Friday as widely expected, while keeping policy accommodative to help pull the coronavirus-ravaged economy out of its worst slump in four decades.
India’s economy has been the worst hit by the pandemic among major countries and new infections continue to climb, but RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said there were some encouraging signs of a business turnaround and activity could return to growth in the January-March quarter.
As expected, the monetary policy committee (MPC) kept the repo rate, its key lending rate, at 4.0%, while the reverse repo rate or the key borrowing rate stayed at 3.35%.
The RBI has slashed the repo rate by