finance minister: Indian central bank rates hike will affect growt

Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday said the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)'s latest round of rate hike will have some impact on economic growth, reported Press Trust of India. "I do hope that decision of RBI to enhance the repo rate and reverse-repo rate by 25 basis points would have its impact on inflation. Of course, it would have some impact on growth also," Mr. Mukherjee told local media. In its policy review meeting on Tuesday, the RBI hiked interest rates by 25 basis points. The short-term lending (repo) and borrowing (reverse-repo) rates now stand at 8.5 per cent and 7.5 per cent, respectively. This is the 13th time for RBI to hike key rates since March 2010. The central bank Tuesday also lowered its GDP forecast for the current fiscal, which ends March next year, to 7.6 percent from earlier projection of 8 percent. India registered a 8.5 percent growth last fiscal year. However, Mukherjee said RBI's policy "would help in getting us back to a more comfortable inflation situation soon while leaving scope for growth to pick up in the second half of current fiscal year". He said the decision has been taken by RBI to affirm its commitment to tackle double digit inflation.