The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its sixth bi-monthly monetary policy statement for 2017-18 decided to keep key interest rates unchanged.

The RBI said, ''On the basis of an assessment of the current and evolving macroeconomic situation at its meeting today, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) decided to keep the policy repo rate under the liquidity adjustment facility (LAF) unchanged at 6.0 per cent.

''Consequently, the reverse repo rate under the LAF remains at 5.75 per cent, and the marginal standing facility (MSF) rate and the Bank Rate at 6.25 per cent,'' it added.

"RBI has kept the policy rate unchanged since August 2017. In-fact, there has been only one repo rate cut by the RBI of 25 basis points during the last fiscal year. The recently released Economy Survey of the Government clearly states that inflation during 2017-18 averaged the lowest in the last six years. Undoubtedly, there has been a missed opportunity of lowering interest rates significantly, which could have provided a major boost to private investments", said Rashesh Shah, President, FICCI.

"Even though there are signs of recovery, the economy is yet to see a firm turnaround and private investments continue to remain sluggish. Going forward, we hope that the RBI will give an equal consideration to the growth concerns, especially given the fact that inflationary pressures in India are largely due to supply side factors on the agriculture front. Furthermore, this year's Union Budget has laid special emphasis on strengthening agriculture supply mechanism and we hope to see better management of food inflation going forward", added Shah.