A day after announcing annual credit policy, RBI Governor D Subbarao today said that any hike in interest rates in future will depend on inflation. Addressing a function in Mumbai, Subbarao said, the probability of hiking rates is not zero but it is small, just as the probability of easing interest rates further is also not zero but modest. After a gap of three years, the Reserve Bank yesterday lowered interest rates by 0.50 per cent to arrest declining growth. The economic growth slowed to a 3-year low of 6.9 per cent in 2011-12 on account of factors like high commodityprices, slowdown in domestic demand and RBI's tight money policy. The RBI had hiked policy rates 13 times since March 2010 to control inflation which had remained close to the double digit mark for most part of 2011. The overall inflation for March eased to 6.89 per cent, lower than RBI's projection of 7 per cent. While releasing the annual monetary policy, Subbarao had said that a reduction in the interest rate was based on anassessment of growth having slowed and a moderation in core inflation.