The government’s decision to restrict exports of wheat following heavy damage to crops from the heatwave will have limited impact on the trade balance and inflation. The bigger worry is that the extreme heat will do broader damage to other rabi (winter) crop. Meanwhile, the minutes of the RBI’s unscheduled meeting this month show that several MPC members are keen on frontloading rate hikes to rein in inflation expectations. That supports our view that the repo rate will be hiked by 50bp in the next meeting in June.
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