NEW DELHI (AP) – India’s central bank Wednesday cuts its key interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point on Wednesday, raising hopes of lower borrowing costs for households as inflation ebbs.
The announcement by the Reserve Bank of India reduced to 6 percent its repo rate, the interest rate the central bank charges on lending to commercial banks.
India’s inflation rate declined to a record low of 1.54 percent in June, while the annual rate of growth in factory output fell to 1.7 percent in May from 8 percent in the same month a year earlier.
Most industrial groups had been pushing for an interest rate cut to help boost the economy by lowering the cost of borrowing.
Central bank Gov. Urjit Patel, who heads a six-member monetary policy committee, told journalists that the cut in borrowing rates was expected to invigorate investments and provide a push to the prime minister’s key scheme to provide housing.