Wholesale inflation in India inched up in November as prices of vegetables such as onions rose.
Inflation as measured by the wholesale price index stood at 0.58 percent in November against 0.16 percent in the previous month, according to data released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. A Bloomberg poll of 22 economists had pegged inflation at 0.84 percent.
Wholesale vegetable prices rose by 45.32 percent from 38.91 percent in the previous month. This pushed up inflation in primary articles to the highest since December 2013.
A further spike in inflation for primary food articles to a 71-month high of 11.1 percent drove up the WPI inflation in November 2019, said Aditi Nayar, principal economist at ICRA. Nevertheless, core WPI displayed a year-on-year disinflation for the fourth consecutive month, the pace of which worsened to 1.9 percent in November 2019, reiterating the weak demand conditions in the economy, Nayar said.
Retail inflation, too, spiked in November, led by a rise in vegetable prices. That came even as core inflation remained flat.
Inflation Internals
- Primary articles inflation stood at 7.7 percent against 6.4 percent in October.
- Prices of food articles stood at 11.1 percent compared with 9.8 percent in the previous month.
- The index of non-food articles fell to 1.93 percent from 2.4 percent last month.
- Fuel and power index contracted 7.93 percent against a fall of 8.3 percent.
- Manufactured products contracted 0.84 percent, same as in the previous month.
The base effect related to minerals, crude petroleum, natural gas, fuel and power is likely to push up headline inflation sharply in December 2019, Nayar said, adding that the core WPI is likely to remain in disinflation till mid-2020.
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