Consumer Food Price Index

As Food Prices Rise More Slowly, India’s Retail Inflation Eases in August

But analysts said that supply constraints still remained, which is likely to keep food prices high.

New Delhi: India’s annual retail inflation eased slightly in August as food inflation cooled, but remained above the upper end of the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) medium-term target for the fifth straight month, government data showed on Monday.

Retail inflation in August of 6.69% was lower than the 6.85% forecast in a Reuters poll of analysts and the 6.73% registered in July.

Food inflation eased a bit last month as India unlocked most parts of its economy which helped in addressing some of the supply chain distortions that the world’s strictest lockdown had created since mid-March.

But analysts said that supply constraints still remained, which is likely to keep food prices high even though agricultural production is likely to be helped by good monsoons seen this year.

Food inflation eased to 9.05% compared to 9.27% in July.

Also read: Retail Inflation Above MPC Comfort Range For Fourth Straight Month

Rising coronavirus infections in India raises the risk of further supply disruptions with India seeing cases increasing faster than in any other country and it lags only the United States in total infections.

August inflation is unlikely to give the RBI room to consider a rate cut at its next policy meeting in October to revive the economy after a record 23.9% contraction in GDP in the January-March quarter.

“The inflation figure for the fifth month in a row remains above RBI’s medium term target of 6%, so RBI rate cut hopes still remains low at least at the Oct policy (meeting),” said Rahul Gupta from Emkay Global Financial Services.

The inflation data indicated that core inflation for August ranged between 5.77% and 5.80%, according to three analysts’ calculations, slightly lower than 5.8%-5.9% in July.

Retail Inflation Above MPC Comfort Range For Fourth Straight Month

Official data released on Thursday showed that CPI for July rose 6.93% year on year, up from 6.23% in June, primarily on the back of rise in food and petroleum prices.

New Delhi: Consumer Price Index-based inflation came in above the Monetary Policy Committee’s target band of 4 (+/-2)% for the fourth consecutive month. Official data released on Thursday showed that CPI for July rose 6.93% year on year, up from 6.23% in June, primarily on the back of rise in food and petroleum prices.

Consumer Food Price Index-based inflation (CFPI) rose to 9.62% in July compared to 8.72% in June, data by the National Statistical Office (NSO) showed.

Exactly a week ago, the Reserve Bank of India’s Monetary Policy Committee exercised a pause in its monetary policy, deciding to use future rate cuts “judiciously to maximise the beneficial effects”. The six-member MPC unanimously voted to keep the policy repo rate unchanged at 4% and the reverse repo rate at 3.35%, and kept the stance “accommodative”.

Also read: Indian Consumer Confidence Dropped to Historic Lows in July, Says RBI Survey

“Retail inflation has breached RBI’s upper tolerance limit (6%) for four consecutive months and seven out of eight months. Pandemic has cast its shadow over the retail price data collection also and data for states such as Manipur, Nagaland and Puducherry has not been released, as the price data was collected from less than 70% markets,” said Devendra Pant, Chief Economist with India Ratings.

“As expected, the soaring vegetable prices amidst heavy rainfall and localised lockdowns, contributed to the spike in food inflation in July 2020, which is expected to soften somewhat in the ongoing month,” said Aditi Nayar, Principal Economist, ICRA Ltd.

For July (compared to June), prices rose for meat and fish, fruits, milk and products and other food-sub groups. However, the most drastic increase in the index was seen for vegetables, which rose to 178.4 compared with 156.5 a year earlier.

“Among the other categories those for the miscellaneous group was high at 7%. Personal care and transportation were the two elements that pushed up this number. Going ahead the other components like health, education would also be under pressure. Recreation too would move up once the industry opens up,” said Madan Sabnavis, Chief Economist with Care Ratings.

Sabnavis partly echoed Nayar’s views and said that food inflation will move downwards once the kharif crop comes in post September. Disruptions in economic activity and localised lockdowns affected free movement of goods leading to artificial increase in prices, he said and added that the government’s policy of not reducing the price of petrol and diesel kept the transport costs higher.

Sabnavis said that the MPC’s decision to not cut rates in its last review was ‘appropriate’

“The evolving trends for the ongoing month suggest that the CPI inflation may remain appreciably above 6% in August 2020, which would be the last inflation print available before the next scheduled MPC review. Accordingly, the likelihood that the MPC would persist with a pause in its October 2020 meeting has climbed sharply, with a final rate cut likely to be deferred to the December 2020 or February,” Nayar said.

(By arrangement with Business Standard)

Govt Releases Part of Consumer Price Index data; Food Inflation Up 9.28% in May

In May 2019, the food inflation was 1.83% as per the full Consumer Price Index (CPI) data released for that period.

New Delhi: In view of the lockdown, the government on Friday released only a part of the retail inflation data, which indicates that food prices have gone up by 9.28% in May.

“All India year-on-year inflation rates for Consumer Food Price Index (CFPI) for the month of May 2020 for Rural, Urban and Combined sector are 9.69%, 8.36% and 9.28% respectively,” said an official press release.

In May 2019, the food inflation was 1.83% as per the full Consumer Price Index (CPI) data released for that period.

The government for the second month in a row released the truncated data on retail inflation in the backdrop of the lockdown following COVID-19 pandemic. For April also, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation had released a truncated CPI data.

The government had imposed the lockdown from March 25, 2020 to curb the spread of coronavirus. The lockdown adversely affected economic activities in the country.

In a statement, the National Statistical Office (NSO) in the ministry said that in view of the continued limited transactions of products in the market in May, 2020 as well, it has been decided to release the price movement of sub-groups/groups of CPI, following the principles of adequacy as indicated in the CPI release for the month of April 2020.

“The price of only those items were included, which have been reported from at least 25% of markets, separately for rural and urban sector and constituted more than 70% weight of the respective sub-groups/ groups,” it said.

Also, the all India indices have been compiled using direct approach by considering a common market at the national level in both rural and urban sectors separately.