RBI unlikely to hike rates in rest of FY19: SBI report

Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is not expected to hike key lending rates in the current fiscal, a SBI Ecowrap report said on Saturday.

"CPI inflation marginally increased to 3.77 per cent in September 2018. Interestingly, on a m-o-m basis, rural food inflation has registered a decline, even as headline registered an increase," the report said.

"Meanwhile, core CPI inflation declined to 5.81 per cent in September 2018 from 5.92 per cent in August 2018. We expect CPI for FY19 at 4.2 per cent. Our inflation trajectory projection makes us believe that rate hike is now off the table in FY19."

On October 5, the RBI belied market expectations of a rate hike. It held the key lending rate unchanged in the context of an uncertain global economic scenario but turned hawkish in its stance, moving to one of calibrated tightening from the "neutral" it had maintained over its six previous policy reviews.