15^th November, 2022

Retail & Wholesale Infaltion

According to the data released by the Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation (MoSPI) on 14^th November, 2022, India’s Retail Inflation, which is measured by Consumer Price Index (CPI), eased to 6.77% in the month of October, down from 7.41% in the month of September.

Despite falling to a 3 month low, the CPI remained above the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) upper range of 6% for the 10^th month in a row. For a 5 year term ending march 2026, the governmnet has directed the central bank to keep retail inflation at 4% with 2% margin on either side.

The central bank ‘s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) had a special off-cycle meeting earlier this month to draft the content of report to be given to the government for missing the inflation target of 6%. So far this year, MPC has raised the key interest rate by 190 bps in a bid to tame the raging inflation. However, despite their move, retail inflation continues to remain above the upper tolerance level.

Consumer food price index (CFPI), which accounts nearly half the CPI basket, showed a MoM fall during October to 7.01%, from 8.60% in September.

In a separate economic data released, the wholesale price inflation (WPI) dropped to 19 month low of 8.39% in October compared to 10.7% in Spetember. WPI has dropped below the double digit mark for the 1^st time since March 2021. On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.26% in October’22 following the 0.7% decline in the previous month.