NEW DELHI: For the third time in a row, the RBI's high-powered monetary policy committee decided to keep the repo rate unchanged at 6.5 per cent.

The repo rate is the interest rate at which the RBI lends money to commercial banks."The decision to keep policy interest rate unchanged was unanimous," RBI chief Shaktikanta Das said in a presser on Thursday."Indian economy is exuding enhanced strength and stability.

Our economy has continued to grow at a reasonable rate, becoming the 5th largest economy in the world," Das said."India is uniquely placed to benefit from ongoing transformational shift in global economy," Das added.The RBI chief said that global economy continue to face daunting challenges of inflation, geo political uncertainty and extreme weather conditions, but exuded confidence that India is expected to withstand external headwinds on economic growth front.

This is the third times since RBI's MPC has decided to keep the repo rate as it is.

The RBI has kept the repo rate unchanged at 6.5 per cent since February when it was raised from 6.25 per cent.With repo rate being kept unchanged, there is likely to be no impact on loan EMIs.In order to tackle inflation, the RBI has raised repo rates by a total of 250 bps since May 2022.

The government has mandate the RBI to ensure retail inflation remains at 4 per cent with a margin of 2 per cent on either side.The MPC has 6 members: three RBI officials and three externals.

The three external members of MPC are: Shashanka Bhide, Ashima Goyal and Jayanth R Varma.

Besides governor Shaktikanta Das, the other RBI officials in MPC are Rajiv Ranjan (executive director) and Michael Debabrata Patra (deputy governor).