WPI cools to 7-month low of 2.48% in February

Lower inflation in fuel and food helped ease India’s wholesale inflation in February to a seven month low of 2.48%, data released on Wednesday showed.

Wholesale price inflation (WPI) was 2.84% last month and 5.51% in February 2017.

“The rate of inflation based on WPI Food Index consisting of ‘Food Articles’ from Primary Articles group and ‘Food Product’ from Manufactured Products group decreased from 1.65% in January, 2018 to 0.07% in February, 2018,” commerce and industry ministry said in a statement.


While inflation in vegetables softened to 15.26% compared with 40.77% in January while that in onions reigned high at 118.95% albeit lower than 193.89% rise registered in the first month of the calendar year.

Inflation in protein rich items eggs, meat and fish fell 0.22% from a 0.37 % growth in January while that of fruits rose 6.13%, lower than 8.49% registered in the trailing month.

However, core inflation or the inflation in non food manufactured products rose sharply.

“The sharp rise in the core-WPI inflation to a 42 month high 3.9% in February 2018, raises concerns regarding the sustainability of the subdued headline inflation print,” said Aditi Nayar, principal economist at ICRA.

Wholesale inflation rose 3.81% in fuel and power and 3.04% in manufactured items compared with 4.08% and 2.78%, respectively.

Data released earlier this week showed retail inflation declining to 4.44% in February

Government retained the WPI for December at 3.58%, same as the provisional estimate released earlier.