Commenting on the monetary policy announced recently Pankaj Patel, president of FICCI said, “We are encouraged by the positive undertone that marks the policy outlook. The GVA growth forecast for 2017-18 has been put at 7.4 percent, which indicates that recovery is expected to gather pace in the current financial year driven by an uptick in discretionary consumption, impact of implementation of Union Budget announcements and rolling out of structural reforms most notably GST”.
“The Central bank’s stance on monetary policy indicates no change in the repo rate. However, the monetary policy rate corridor has been narrowed. From industry’s perspective, greater transmission of previous policy rate cuts and a further softening of the lending rates of banks is important as this would encourage both consumption and investment demand,” added Mr. Patel.
“The decision of the central bank to allow banks to invest in REITS and InvITs is also encouraging and should offer a good source of liquidity for the real estate companies. We look forward to the detailed guidelines on this subject by the RBI as well as further instructions and final guidelines with regard to Merchant Discount Rate for Debit Card transactions,” he concluded.
