WPI inflation rises slightly to 0.11% in December

14 Jan 2015 Evaluate

The annual rate of inflation, based on monthly wholesale price index (WPI), rose marginally to 0.11% y-o-y in December as compared to 0% in November. Though, WPI inflation rose on m-o-m basis, it came at lower than general market expectation of 0.3%. 

The moderation in WPI inflation was broad based and primarily driven by lower prices of fuels and manufacturing products. However, inflation in food articles rose to 5.20% in the reported month as compared to 0.63% in November mainly due to the high prices of egg, moong and barley. 

Meanwhile, inflation for non-food articles declined by 3.06% y-o-y in the month of December as against 3.64% contraction in the previous month mainly on account of lower price of guar seed, copra and gingelly seed. On the whole, inflation for Primary Articles, having weight of 20.12% in WPI index, rose to 2.17% in December from a year earlier as compared to 0.98% contraction in the previous month.

Fuel & Power, which has weight of 14.91% in WPI index, has been remained the major contributor to the low wholesale inflation in December’14, witnessing negative inflation of 7.82% in December as compared to 4.91% inflation in the previous month. However, this decline does not come as a surprise as global crude oil prices have fell considerably from a year ago levels. The rate of inflation for manufactured products, having weight of 64.97% in the WPI index, eased to 1.57% y-o-y in December from 2.04% in November mainly primarily driven by the lower prices of metal, rubber, chemical and machine tools.

As the inflation has declined substantially over the past few months, the demand for rate cut has emerged in the markets. RBI is scheduled to announce its sixth bi-monthly monetary policy on February 3.

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