RBI may hold interest rate in Dec 5 policy review on weakening economy

RBI kept its benchmark rate unchanged at 6.5 per cent in October, lowering its growth forecast for the first quarter of the 2020 fiscal year to 7.4 per cent

India’s economy grew at a much slower pace than economists expected last quarter, giving the central bank more reason to keep interest rates unchanged this week.

After breaking through the 8 percent mark in the quarter through June, growth eased to 7.1 percent in the three months through September -- lower than almost all the estimates in a Bloomberg survey -- as back-to-back rate hikes in June and August, a funding squeeze and subdued growth in farming put a brake on the world’s fastest-expanding economy.

With inflation already at a 13-month low and oil prices sliding, calls for the Reserve Bank of