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Shaktikanta Das, governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), arrives for a press conference at the RBI head office in Mumbai, India, Dec. 5, 2019. India's Central Bank announced to maintain the repo rate unchanged at 5.15 percent on Thursday, giving priority to control inflation rather than the diminishing growth in Asia's third largest economy. The statement was made after the country's Reserve Bank of India's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) concluded its two-day meeting on Thursday. (Photo by Fariha Farooqui/Xinhua)

MUMBAI, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- India's Central Bank announced to maintain the repo rate unchanged at 5.15 percent on Thursday, giving priority to control inflation rather than the diminishing growth in Asia's third largest economy.

The statement was made after the country's Reserve Bank of India's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) concluded its two-day meeting on Thursday.

"Given the evolving growth-inflation dynamics, the MPC (Monetary Policy Committee) felt it appropriate to take a pause at this juncture," said the Central Bank statement, cutting the current full-year growth forecast to 5 percent from 6.1 percent earlier.

Most market experts were expecting at least a 25-basis points rate cut.

While cutting the current full-year growth forecast to 5 percent from 6.1 percent seen in October, the Central Bank said the October inflation at 4.6 percent was "much higher than expected," breaching its 4 percent medium target for the first time in over a year.

Raising its inflation forecast for the 2nd half of the financial year ending March 2020 to 5.1-4.7 percent from the previous target of 3.5-3.7 percent, the Central Bank expects vegetables prices to continue to rise referring to the rising prices of onions and tomato in recent months.

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