RBI to retain its monetary stance till April 20

Borrowers may breathe easy for sometime as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) today said it is not going to change its policy rates or other tools, which have a bearing on interest rates, till April 20.

"Please don't expect any action between now and the next announcement unless there is completely unanticipated, unwarranted event," RBI Deputy Governor Subir Gokarn told reporters on the sidelines of an Assocham seminar here.

The RBI is scheduled to come out with its annual monetary policy for the next fiscal on April 20.

"We had anticipated in our announcement in January that the government would live up to its earlier commitment to bring the (fiscal) deficit down to 5.5 per cent of the GDP and our policy decision on January 29 takes that into consideration," he said.

The Finance Minister had set a target of reducing the fiscal deficit to 5.5 per cent of GDP next fiscal from the projection of 6.8 per cent for the current fiscal.

On food inflation, the deputy governor said, "In the event of normal monsoon, I think food inflation situation should moderate towards the end of the year."

In the monetary policy review on January 29, RBI Governor D Subbarao had said, "...On the assumption of a normal monsoon and global oil prices remaining around the current level, it is expected that inflation will moderate from July 2010."

Gokarn added, "We don't have week by week expectation. We track the numbers. We have somewhat long term outlook. We expect food inflation to soften."