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India central bank cuts lending rates, growth view
AP - 2 hours 28 minutes ago
MUMBAI, India - India's central bank cut key interest rates Tuesday and downgraded its growth forecast as the global financial crisis takes a bigger-than-expected toll on Asia's third-largest economy.
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The Reserve Bank of India cut the repo rate for short-term loans to commercial banks to 4.75 percent from 5 percent and lowered the reverse repo rate _ the rate it pays to banks when absorbing funds from the financial system _ to 3.25 percent from 3.5 percent.
The central bank cut its growth forecast for the year ending March 2010 to 6 percent. Over the last five years, India's economic growth has averaged 8.8 percent a year.
Gov. D. Subbarao said India, like all emerging economies, has been affected by the global economic crisis and by much more than was first expected. "The extent of impact has caused dismay," he said.
India has already taken aggressive measures to boost growth _ slashing interest rates, announcing fiscal stimulus packages and pumping more than 4.2 billion rupees ($83.4 million) into the financial system.
The central bank left the cash reserve ratio _ the amount of money commercial banks must keep on hand _ unchanged at 5 percent.
Despite months of aggressive rate cuts by the Reserve Bank, commercial banks in India have been slow to pass on lower rates to borrowers.
Subbarao, who met with top bankers Tuesday morning, told reporters the latest cuts were meant as a signal to commercial banks to decrease their lending rates to help fuel the economy.
"We hope and expect banks will play their part in the economic adjustment process by passing on lower rates," he said.
ICICI Bank, the nation's largest private bank, reacted quickly, cutting consumer loan rates Tuesday by 50 basis points and deposit rates by 25 to 50 basis points.
The Reserve Bank is also struggling to manage a sharp rise in government borrowing, which economists worry is perversely pushing up the cost of funds to the private sector just when they need affordable credit.
Government borrowing tripled last fiscal year, as the government implemented populist loan waivers for farmers, food and fuel subsidies, and pay hikes for civil servants, and scraped together what stimulus spending and tax cuts _ meager by global standards _ it could afford.
The Indian government has said it will borrow $48 billion in the next six months to fund its rising fiscal deficit.
"The increase in government bond yields is raising the cost of long-term borrowing for corporates," Goldman Sachs economist Tushar Poddar wrote in a note.
The global meltdown has also caused India, long a closed economy, to reconsider the timing and nature of some financial market liberalization.
Subbarao said a review on loosening restrictions on the operation of foreign banks in India, scheduled for April, has been postponed until "there is greater clarity regarding the global financial system."
"Our broad thrust of liberalization remains the same," he said. "Our policy has been and will continue to be calibrated, gradual opening up. However, in moving forward we will learn the lessons of the crisis."
He said the bank's forecast of 6 percent growth was predicated on the assumption that India, which depends far less on exports than China, would be able to jump-start its own recovery.
"Domestic investment and domestic demand will trigger the revival of growth," he said, but added that India will not be able to recover 9 percent growth until the global economy rebounds.
"We need the global economy to get back on track," he said.
The benchmark Sensex index reacted anemically to the cuts, which were roughly in line with expectations, and closed down 0.74 percent, at 10,898.11 points.
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