At 1.55%, November WPI reaches nine-month high

India’s wholesale inflation rose for the fourth consecutive month and firmed up to a nine-month high of 1.55% in November driven by manufactured items, data released by the commerce and industry ministry showed on Monday.

Wholesale price index (WPI) inflation was 1.48% in September.

The annual rate of inflation based on WPI Food Index, which comprises 'food articles' from primary articles group and 'food product' from manufactured products group, decreased to 4.27% in November from 5.78% in October. The government retained the wholesale inflation for September at 1.32%.


“The WPI for November printed in line with our expectation, recording a mild uptick relative to October, as higher core and fuel inflation was offset by a base-effect led cooling in the inflation for primary food articles, minerals, and crude petroleum,”said Aditi Nayar, principal economist at ICRA.

Food inflation in November stood at 3.94%, against 6.37% in the previous month. The rate of price rise in vegetables and potato remained high at 12.24% and 115.12% during the month.
Inflation in non-food articles was higher at 8.43% in November. Fuel and power basket softened to -9.87% in November.

The ministry of statistics and programme implementation will release the retail inflation numbers for November later in the day.

India’s retail inflation, based on the consumer price index, was a six-year high of 7.61 % in October.

Nayar said a rise in WPI inflation for core items and commodities, including crude oil and mineral oils, would be partly offset by a base-effect led decline in the food inflation in December, resulting in a fairly stable print for the ongoing month.