Mumbai, Apr 29: Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will announce the annual the monetary and credit policy for the year 2008-09 today.

Rising inflation could impact the policy in terms of further rate hikes.

The RBI’s key policy rates were raised nine times since October 2004, while the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR), the mandatory amounts that the banks have to keep with RBI, was raised five times since December 2006.

On Monday, a day ahead of an interest rate decision, a report released by the RBI on Macroeconomic and Monetary Developments in 2007-08 said that the country’s economy continued to expand at a robust pace during the period for the fifth consecutive year.

A slew of measures taken by the Government to contain price pressures in the economy should help curb inflation, but risks from high oil prices remained, but the global food prices were likely to remain firm as supply side pressures did not appear to be abating, the report stated.

The report said the index of industrial production and the manufacturing sector grew by 8.7 per cent and by 9.1 per cent respectively. The services sector maintained its double-digit growth at 10.6 per cent during 2007-08 despite some moderation in pace.

It further said the total foodgrains production is slated to reach an all-time high at 227.3 million tonnes, recording an increase of 4.6 per cent over the previous year.

Quoting Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) figures, the RBI placed the real GDP growth rate at 8.7 per cent in 2007-08 as compared with 9.6 per cent in 2006-07. (ANI)