Hawkish, according high priority to price stability; CRR hiked by 25bp

The RBI policy announced yesterday was largely in line withour expectations - hawkish, according high priority to pricestability and well-anchored inflationary expectations. ThePolicy acknowledged the challenges created by a growingset of adverse international developments. As expected,further tightening was announced, except that it took theform of a further 25bp CRR hike, taking CRR to 8.25% andleaving the Repo and Reverse Repo rates unchanged.