INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
to an eight-month low in December, strengthening views among some economists central bank could ease its monetary policy stance next month
as country faces a slowdown in manufacturing.Annual wholesale price inflation edged down to 3.80 per cent last month, as food prices hardly
rose and fuel cost increases almost halved, government data showed on Monday
The outcome was lower than a provisional 4.64 per cent rise in November and below a 4.42 per cent increase forecast by economists in a poll
by news agency Reuters.The Reserve Bank of India's Monetary Policy Committee, which mainly monitors retail inflation data and kept
interest rates unchanged at a meeting last month, will have leeway to soften its monetary stance at its February 7 meeting, say
economists."With wholesale and retail inflation easing, we expect RBI to soften its monetary policy stance at its next meeting," said
Devindra Kumar Pant, chief economist, India Ratings and Research, an arm of Fitch Ratings.Retail inflation data will be released later on
Monday and economists have projected prices may have eased to its lowest since June 2017.Annual growth in country's industrial output in
November slumped to 0.5 per cent from an upwardly revised 8.4 per cent in October, on a slowdown in auto and garment manufacturing
The economic weakness is a problem for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has already been struggling to meet ambitious job creation targets,
passenger vehicle sales for December fell 0.43 per cent to 2,38,692 units from a year earlier, data released by Society of Indian Automobile
Manufacturers (SIAM) showed.Wholesale food prices in December remained almost flat, up 0.07 per cent from a year earlier compared with a
1.96 per cent fall a month earlier
The figures indicate that rural incomes remain under pressure while consumers are benefitting from easing inflation."A deflationary trend in
many food items for last few months only shows that farmers' incomes are not rising," said Mr Pant.
