E-Paper
Wholesale inflation hits 23-month high of 3.55%
NEW DELHI: India’s wholesale inflation grew 3.55% in July— a 23-month high — driven by costlier food items, including pulses, potato and sugar, latest price data
NEW DELHI: India’s wholesale inflation grew 3.55% in July— a 23-month high — driven by costlier food items, including pulses, potato and sugar, latest price data released on Monday showed.
Wholesale price index (WPI)-based inflation had grown 1.62% in June.
Wholesale inflation rates, a marker for price movements in bulk buys for traders, broadly mirror trends in shop-end prices over the last few months.
Data released last week showed that retail inflation rate rose to 6.07% in July, a two-year high.
Wholesale food inflation, a broad proxy to track changes in household kitchen costs, shot up to a 30-month high of 11.82% in July, against 8.18% in June.
Experts expect prices to cool down after the arrival of new crop in the coming months on the back of abundant summer rains. “Emerging trends regarding the ongoing kharif (summer crop) sowing suggest an imminent cooling of food inflation in the coming months,” said Aditi Nayar, senior economist at ICRA, a credit rating firm.
Manufactured products inflation, which largely captures trends in non-food, non-fuel product prices, grew 10.19% in July, from 8.35% in June.
Prices of pulses, a common source of proteins from most Indians, grew 35.76% in July at the wholesale level from 26.61% in the previous month, while vegetable prices grew 28.05% from 16.91% in June.
Potato prices rose 58.78% in July, compared to 64.48% in the previous month.
A high inflation rate will likely weaken the chances of an interest rate cut in the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) monetary policy review in October.
