The Reserve Bank
of India (RBI) has kept the key interest rates, like the reverse
repo rate, the repo rate and the bank rate, as well as the cash
reserve ratio (CRR) unchanged in its Annual Monetary Policy for the
year 2007-08. The policy is in line with our expectations. It
continues to remain focused on maintaining price stability and
anchoring inflation. However the importance of growth is once again
visible in the RBI's statements and that is the key positive
takeaway from this policy. The salient features of the policy are
given below.
The reverse
repo rate and the repo rate have been kept unchanged at 6% and
7.75% respectively.
The bank rate
has been kept unchanged at 6%.
The CRR has
been kept unchanged at 6.5%.
The risk
weightage on residential housing loans has been reduced to 50%
from 75% for home loans up to Rs20 lakh.
The
non-resident Indian deposit rate on foreign currency non-resident
bank deposits and non-resident (external) rupee account deposits
has been reduced by 50 basis points as per expectations. However
the apex bank has made capital account outflows more relaxed for
all categories, from corporates to
individuals.