Raghuram Rajan meets Finance Minister; discusses economic situation

Ahead of the RBI's central board meet, the central bank chief Raghuram Rajan today met Finance Minister P Chidambaram and is understood to have discussed economic issues.

"Our meeting was part of regular interaction that takes place between RBI and Finance Ministry," Rajan said after his hour long meeting with the Minister and Economic Affairs Secretary Arvind Mayaram.

The Central Board of Reserve Bank will meet in Raipur tomorrow to discuss key economic and financial developments. The RBI board meets at least once every quarter. The meeting would be chaired by Rajan. The four deputy governors are the official directors on the board, while Mayaram and Financial Services Secretary Rajiv Takru are the government nominees. There are also 11 non-official directors on RBI board.

The meeting assumes significance in the wake of economic growth falling to a four year low of 4.4% and current account deficit (CAD) at an elevated level of 4.9% in the April-June quarter.

While the government has been emphasising on measures for incentivising growth, the RBI in its policy review last month had hiked interest rates by 0.25%. The RBI is scheduled to announce its second quarter policy review on October 29.

Although Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other government functionaries are expecting the growth to improve in the second half of this fiscal, Asian Development Bank in its recent report lowered India's growth projection for 2013-14 to 4.7%. The economic growth rate slipped to a decade's low level of 5% in 2012-13.