Mumbai: RBI governor Raghuram Rajan asked businessmen to bring down prices and then he would bring down interest rates. He threw the ball in their court after they asked him when he would bring interest rates down. Dr Rajan was answering questions after delivering the inaugural address at the FIBAC 2014 organised by FICCI and the Indian Banks’ Association in Mumbai. Chiding businessmen for asking him to bring down interest rates even when price were rising he said, “When you do that (bring prices down) then we will do that, we have no problem. Clearly you will have no consensus on this,” Dr Rajan said.
He said it is not just food prices that are persistently high but even those of non-food items which remain elevated, “The best solution for the country is to bring these prices down. Then I can cut interest rates. I have no desire to keep interest rates high for even a second longer. I want to bring down interest rates when it is feasible and that would be when we have won the fight against inflation,” he said. “There is no point in cutting interest rates to see inflation pick-up again,” he said.
