India Lowers Benchmark Interest Rate to Fuel Growth

MUMBAI â€" India’s central bank lowered its key policy rate on Tuesday, as expected, for the first time in nine months to support an economy that is poised for its slowest growth in a decade, but signaled there was less room for aggressive cuts because of concerns over inflation.

The Reserve Bank of India cut its benchmark rate by 0.25 of a percentage point to 7.75 percent, in line with a Reuters poll this month.

The central bank unexpectedly also reduced the cash reserve ratio, the share of deposits banks must keep with the central bank, by 0.25 of a percentage point to 4 percent, which will pump an additional 180 billion rupees, or $3.3 billion, into the banking system.

India’s headline inflation rate moderated to a three-year low of 7.18 percent in December, and the central bank said there was likelihood that inflation would remain around current levels heading into the 2013-14 fiscal year, which starts in April.

“This provides space, albeit limited, for monetary policy to give greater emphasis to growth risks,” the central bank said in its quarterly monetary policy review.

Bond and stock markets were largely unmoved as dealers had already priced in a quarter-percentage-point rate cut. The 10-year bond yield was flat at about 7.87 percent. India’s main NSE index was also flat, with the bank sub-index up 0.2 percent, paring initial stronger gains.

The Indian rupee strengthened to 53.79 to the dollar from about 53.84 before the decision.

“RBI has not abandoned its cautious stance, stressing on the ‘calibrated and limited’ nature of rate support,” said Radhika Rao, an economist at Forecast Pte in Singapore. “The scale of rate cuts is closely tied to the government’s sustained efforts to correct the twin imbalances and moderating inflation trajectory.”

The central bank, however, reiterated its concerns over a bloated fiscal and current account deficits, adding that its pro-growth stance would be conditioned by the management of the risks posed by them.

“Financing the CAD with increasingly risky and volatile flows increases the economy’s vulnerability to sudden shifts in risk appetite and liquidity preference, potentially threatening macroeconomic and exchange rate stability,” the bank said, referring to the current account deficit.

Since a 0.5 percentage point cut in April, the central bank had kept interest rates on hold as inflation stayed stubbornly high, ignoring repeated calls from the government for a cut.

Having grown at near-double-digit pace before the Lehman Brothers crisis, the economy has suffered a rapid deceleration.

The central bank cut its G.D.P. growth forecast for Asia’s third-largest economy to 5.5 percent for the current fiscal year, from 5.8 percent previously, and lowered its projection for headline inflation in March to 6.8 percent from 7.5 percent earlier.

A version of this article appeared in print on January 30, 2013, in The International Herald Tribune.