Reserve Bank to hold additional monetary policy meeting on November 3

The Reserve Bank of India will hold an additional meeting of Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) on November 3, 2022, the central bank said in a statement on Thursday.

The MPC hiked the policy repo rate by 50 basis points (bps) to 5.9 per cent in the last policy review, announced on September 30. Since May, repo rate has been hiked by 190 bps even as inflation stayed stubbornly higher, over 6 per cent — the upper tolerance limit of RBI. (100 bps = 1 percentage points).

RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said the world was in the eye of the new storm from aggressive policy tightening from central banks of advanced economies and their even more aggressive forward guidance.

“The future trajectory remains clouded with uncertainties arising from continuing geopolitical conflicts, possibility of further supply disruptions, volatile financial market conditions and domestic weather related factors,” Das said, adding that he remained optimistic about the future prospects of the Indian economy.

“The need of the hour is calibrated monetary policy action, with a clear understanding that it is required for sustaining our medium-term growth prospects,” Das said.

The next review of the monetary policy committee is scheduled on December 5-7.