New Delhi: The Reserve Bank of India kept the key interest rates unchanged for the 11th consecutive time on Friday. RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das, announcing the outcome of the three-day Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting said that the repo rate has been kept unchanged at 6.5 percent.

Announcing the fifth bi-monthly monetary policy for the current financial year, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has decided to keep the repo rate unchanged at 6.5 percent. RBI will also continue with ‘neutral’ monetary policy stance.

The RBI has maintained status quo on benchmark interest rate since February 2023. This was the second meeting of the reconstituted MPC. The three newly appointed external members are Ram Singh, Saugata Bhattacharya and Nagesh Kuma.

Reserve Bank has slashed Cash Reserve Ratio to 4 percent from existing 4.5 percent, which would lead to release of Rs 1.16 lakh crore to banks and improve their lending capacity. The CRR is the percentage of a bank’s total deposits that it is required to maintain in liquid cash with the RBI. The CRR percentage is determined by the RBI from time to time. Banks do not get any interest on this amount.

RBI has lowered the GDP growth forecast to 6.6 percent for the current fiscal, as against earlier projection of 7.2 percent. The central bank has raised inflation target to 4.8 percent from the previous projection of 4.5 percent for the current fiscal.