August WPI Data: Wholesale Inflation Moves Back To Expansion

India's wholesale price inflation moved back to expansion after deflating the past two months, according to data released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry on Monday.

Wholesale inflation rose to a four-month high of 0.52% in August. It had eased to a two-year low of -0.58% in July.

Wholesale inflation in primary articles continued to deflate but at a decelerated pace, while manufacturing, which forms the largest component of the index, saw an uptick.

Food items accounted for as much as 73 basis points of the 110 basis points uptick in the headline WPI print between August 2025 and July 2025, followed by core WPI, according to Rahul Agrawal, senior economist at ICRA.

ICRA expects the headline WPI to rise further to a 6-month high of about 0.9% in September 2025, led by a hardening in the YoY prints for global crude oil and commodity prices, as well as the depreciation in the USD/INR pair, even as an elevated base would likely pull down the food index back to the deflationary territory in the month. 

The consumer price index-based inflation also saw a reversal in trend, climbing to 2.07% in August, compared to 1.55% in July.

• Inflation in manufactured products rose by 2.55% in August compared to 2.05% in July.

• Primary articles inflation fell by 2.1% versus a fall of 4.95%.

• Inflation in food articles—a sub-component of primary articles—fell 3.1% vs 6.3%.

• Fuel and power inflation: -3.2% vs -2.4%.

• Vegetables: -14.2% vs -28.96%.