Politicising Economic Numbers

Politicising Economic Numbers

- Aditya Sinha

That the economy is stalling is clear with various indictments of the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) Monetary Policy Committee's (MPC) incremental lowering of the repo rate (by 25 basis points, or 0.25%) last month. Whether it is Kaushik Basu who has no love lost for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government, or it is a pro-BJP Surjit Bhalla, they have come down hard on the RBI's stubbornness on bringing down interest rates. They point out that India's rates are among the highest in the world; they see no reason to lower the rate considering that inflation has hovered close to two per cent throughout the past year. Unless interest rates come down, businesses face difficulty in borrowing money from banks with which to expand capacity and production, which would be an engine of economic growth. Also, money from around the world races to India to take advantage of high rates, and that contributes to an artificially high currency exchange rate, which hurts exporters. To help clear debts helps business confidence, they say.