New Delhi: The wholesale price index (WPI) remains in two digits in January, for the 10th month in a row, because the company grappled with increasing input costs and more continuing higher prices to consumers.
The wholesale price in January rose 12.96% from the previous year, less than 13.56% the previous month, government data showed on Monday.
It was higher than an estimated 12.7% in Reuters analyst poll, partly because of higher food prices – up 9.55% this year, versus 9.24% in December.
Increased input costs for products such as fuel, metal and chemicals have pushed wholesale prices, proxies for producer prices.
The main retail inflation hovered around 5.5%, still in the target of 2% -6% of Bank India.
Many economists have warned that despite the estimated RBI from inflationary pressures, the increase in oil and food prices has a risk of inflation.
“Continuous hardening in the price of crude oil which is exacerbated by geopolitical concerns that are ongoing, and its impact on the rupee, pose the biggest risk of the WPI inflation trajectory in the ongoing quarter,” Aditi Nargga said, the chief economist at the ICRA ranking institution, India Moody’s arm .
The RBI (MPC) monetary policy committee left the Benchmark repo tariff unchanged at 4.0% last week, while attached to the attitude of the accommodative policy to help the economy recover from a pandemic.
The central bank has slashed the repo level with a total of 115 basis points (BPS) since March 2020 to soften a punch of pandemic Coronavirus and difficult detention steps.
The current level is 250 bps below the level in early 2019, when the easing cycle begins.
Consumer price-based inflation, the main measure monitored by the RBI monetary policy committee, is at a height of five months 5.59% in December.
The price of fuel and power in January rose 32.27% in versus 32.30% in December, while the price of products produced rose 9.55%, against 10.62% in the previous month.
The wholesale price of food was accelerated at a speed of 9.55%, versus 9.24% the previous month.