The Reserve Bank of India left its key interest rate unchanged on Friday, opting to preserve policy support for growth as inflation remained below its medium-term target despite rising risks from higher oil prices and a weaker rupee.
The Monetary Policy Committee kept the benchmark repo rate at 5.25%, extending its pause as consumer price pressures stayed comfortably contained. Retail inflation eased to 3.48% in April, remaining below the central bank's 4% target for more than a year and giving policymakers little immediate reason to tighten monetary policy.
The decision reflects the RBI's assessment that domestic inflation remains well anchored even as global developments threaten to increase imported price pressures.
Crude oil prices have risen sharply following the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, with benchmark prices hovering around 30% above levels seen before the outbreak of hostilities. At the same time, the rupee has weakened about 6% against the U.S. dollar this year amid a broader shift by investors toward safer assets, increasing the risk of costlier imports.
Malhotra also cautioned that weather-related uncertainties, including the risk of a weaker-than-normal monsoon and El Nino conditions, remained key monitorables for policymakers. However, he said comfortable foodgrain inventories and robust reservoir levels should help mitigate the impact of any supply-side shocks on inflation.
However, policymakers judged that those risks have yet to significantly affect consumer inflation, allowing them to keep rates unchanged while monitoring the evolving global environment.
The RBI has already intervened in currency markets to moderate volatility and slow the rupee's decline, reducing pressure to use interest rates as a tool to support the currency.
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While several Asian central banks, including those in Indonesia and the Philippines, have recently raised rates to defend their currencies and contain imported inflation, India's relatively benign inflation backdrop has afforded the RBI greater flexibility to remain on hold.
The central bank's decision also reflects lingering uncertainty over the durability of global growth and financial market conditions, with policymakers preferring to assess how higher energy prices feed through to the broader economy before considering further action.
Even as inflation remains below target, the RBI is likely to remain alert to the risk that sustained increases in oil prices, a weaker rupee and rising wholesale inflation could eventually spill over into consumer prices in the coming months.
