RBI to announce first monetary policy of 2023 on Feb 8

The announcement will follow a two-day review by the six-member Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) amid concerns about a further slowdown in economic growth and tight global financial conditions.

It will be the RBI's first policy stance for the calendar year 2023 and comes just a week after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget for the year 2023-24.

Even as the US Federal Reserve has indicated that the disinflation has already set in, the possibility of a slowdown in economic growth will pose a challenge for MPC.

The RBI is expected to raise the main interest rate by a modest 25 basis points (bps) to 6.50 percent, according to economists who participated in a poll conducted by Reuters.

Economists expect RBI to halt after that like most of the central banks across major world economies are waiting for the inflationary pressures to ebb before considering a shift towards a stimulative stance.

As the major central banks are still hawkish, RBI’s job has become a little bit harder, say the experts.

However, India’s headline retail inflation rate declined 5.72 percent in December 2022, the lowest in the last one year, easing for the third consecutive. Also, December's consumer price index (CPI) inflation print came in lower than the upper band of RBI's 2-6 percent mandate.

Despite all this, the aggregate inflation basket is still very sticky.