India’s gross domestic product growth could be above 7 per cent for 2022-23, the central bank governor said on Wednesday, adding that such an outcome, if realised, should not come as a surprise.
There is also a possibility that GDP growth for the last financial year could be higher, Shaktikanta Das said at an event in New Delhi.
After the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) decided to keep the repo rate unchanged in April at 6.5 per cent, the central bank governor Shaktikanta Das on Wednesday said that pausing the interest rate hike is not in his hands and it depends on on-ground situation. “Pausing rate hikes is not a decision which is entirely in my hands because I am driven by what is happening at the ground level,” he said at the Confederation of Indian Industry Annual Session (2023). He also noted that it was heartening to see that Indian industries used the current situation to strengthen its resilience.
Talking about inflation, Das said that while the “war against inflation is not over”, inflation is moderate but there is no room for complacency. “We assumed inflation would be moderate in February, but then we had the big surprise from the Russia-Ukraine war,” he said, adding that the surprise MPC meeting after the war was “the right decision”.
“Last MPC, we gave you a positive surprise, by giving a pause because our assessment was that we have done a 250 bps increase. Let’s allow monetary policy to play out and transmit. We monitor the transmission on the credit side, liability side as well,” he said, while adding that the situation is extremely fluid and highly dynamic.
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