New Delhi: Focusing more on keeping headline inflation under control, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Tuesday left key rates unchanged and projected a growth of 8.5 per cent for the economy during the current fiscal (2007-08).

"The policy endeavour would be to contain inflation close to 5 per cent in 2007-08, while conditioning expectations in the range of 4-4.5 per cent," the central bank said in its quarterly review of its current monetary policy.

The benchmark bank rate, the reverse repo rate, the repo rate and cash reserve ratio (CRR) have all been left untouched, the central bank said and added that management of liquidity will assume priority in the conduct of monetary policy.

Repo rate denotes the discount at which the central bank repurchases government securities from commercial banks to inject liquidity in the system and reverse repo rate signifies the rate at which it absorbs liquidity from banks.

While the bank rate is currently pegged at 6 percent, the reverse repo rate and the repo rate have been notified at 6 per cent and 7.75 per cent, respectively. The cash reserve ratio stands at 7.5 per cent.

RBI Governor Y Venugopal Reddy conducted the quarterly review of the monetary and credit policy, which was keenly waited by not only the Indian industry but also equities traders.

Reddy said the thrust of Tuesday's review was to reinforce the emphasis on price stability and well-anchored inflation expectations while ensuring interest rates environment conducive to maintaining the growth momentum.

* Highlights of monetary policy 2007-08

Source : IANS