Friday, 15 December 2017

Fourth and Fifth Bi-monthly Monetary Policy Statements

Monetary Policy                                                                                                              2017-18

In the last two statements - October 4 and December 6 - RBI has continued with the repo rate at 6%. This is not surprising given RBI's thinking on the subject.

Let's look at the two key macro variables - growth and inflation.

RBI marked down the growth rate for the year, 2017-18, from 7.3% to 6.7% in the October statement, and has retained this number in last week's statement. RBI's inflation projection was raised in the second half of the year from 4-4.5% to 4.2-4.6% in October; this has been marginally raised last week to 4.3-4.7%.

RBI's 2017-18 growth forecast is based on 7% in Q3 and 7.8% in Q4.

Inflation has trended higher since June in line with the RBI's expectations. After the statement on Dec 6, November CPI number came in at 4.88%. This is slightly outside the range set out by the RBI. 




Please see my earlier bogs on the subject.

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