Current Interest Rates Likely To Affect Growth: ICICI

Chennai: The Indian growth story could be affected if interest rates continued to increase or even remained at the same level, said K V Kamath, managing director and chief executive officer, ICICI Bank. Interest rates currently seemed to have peaked and might probably fall. Kamath''s comments on interest rates come at a time when the Reserve Bank of India''s (RBI) first quarter review of the annual statement on monetary policy is less than a fortnight away. Credit growth has clearly slowed down across all sectors and lay consumers are under pressure. Credit offtake has relaxed and deposit mobilisation and liquidity are strong. Inflation is well under control at around 4 per cent and call rates are at 0.1 per cent. Kamath said that while the overall industrial momentum was continuing, there was some slowdown in a few sectors.