RBI MPC Meeting: Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das is going to announce the first monetary policy for the financial year 2023-24 on Thursday, April 6, 2023. The eyes of all the borrowers from the market will be focused on the results of the meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee of RBI, which will be announced by the governor. After the current global economic situation and the decline in GDP figures, it was expected that RBI should not decide to increase interest rates further. But after the decision of OPEC countries to cut crude oil production with increase in temperature in February and unseasonal rains in March and April, it is believed that RBI may increase the repo rate by a quarter percent on Thursday. < /p>
In the financial year 2022-23, RBI had decided to increase the repo rate in six out of seven monetary policy meetings. The repo rate was increased directly from 4 per cent to 6.50 per cent. But now once again the possibility of increasing the repo rate is being expressed. In the retail inflation rate that was announced for February 2023, the retail inflation rate has been 6.44 percent, which is more than the RBI’s own tolerance band of 6 percent. RBI has been continuously increasing the interest rates to bring it down, but the economy has had to bear the brunt of it in the form of expensive loans. So the EMIs of those who had taken cheap home loans from banks have become very expensive. If the loan becomes more expensive from here, then their difficulties will increase further.
The effect of expensive loans is visible from the automobile sector to the real estate sector. The pace of growth of both these sectors has decreased. But for the purpose of reducing the inflation, the RBI has been making the loans expensive, water seems to be turning on it. There is talk of damage to rabi crops like wheat and mustard due to unseasonal rains. In such a situation, the possibility of reduction in the prices of food items is less visible at present. Crude oil producing country OPEC-Plus has decided to reduce production, due to which crude oil prices can see a jump. In such a situation, the possibility of petrol diesel becoming cheaper is now less visible.
Due to these reasons, the expectations of the RBI governor to reduce inflation can be dashed. In his monetary policy announcement, the RBI governor will also give an estimate of GDP figures along with the target of inflation rate figures for 2023-24.
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