NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India’s annual wholesale price-based inflation (WPI) eased in January to 4.73% year-on-year, on cooling prices of some raw materials, government data showed on Tuesday.
The reading was below the 4.95% rate recorded in the previous month but was higher than the Reuters poll forecast of 4.54%.
Fuel and power inflation in January was 15.15%, down from 18.09% in December, while inflation on manufactured products rose 2.99% from 3.37% last month.
However, prices of food rose at a faster pace in January to 2.95% from 0.65% in the previous month.
Due to high food prices January’s retail inflation print rose above the central bank’s upper threshold for the first time in three months.
“WPI inflation is broadly in line with expectations. “Nevertheless, increase in food inflation is in line with CPI (retail inflation). We do expect WPI will fall further below 3% by March,” Aditi Nayar, economist at ICRA
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(Reporting by Aftab Ahmed and Nikunj Ohri; Editing by Himani Sarkar & Shri Navaratnam)