Survey: India's central bank expected to cut interest rates by 25 basis points on June 6, another cut in August.

A Reuters survey of economists shows that the Reserve Bank of India will cut interest rates for the third consecutive time on June 6 and again in August to support the sluggish economy. This forecast is similar to the previous survey. With the economic growth rate dropping sharply from over 9% in the previous year to 6.3% in the last fiscal year, and inflation below the central bank's target of 4.0%, the Reserve Bank of India has ample room to cut rates. In the survey conducted from May 19-28, most economists expect the RBI to cut the benchmark repo rate by 25 basis points to 5.75% at the end of the meeting on June 4-6. Two respondents expect a 50 basis point cut, while the remaining six expect rates to remain unchanged. Over 80% of economists predict that the benchmark rate will be lowered to 5.50% by the end of August. In last month's survey, only slightly more than half of economists believed this would happen.