The Wholesale Price Index (WPI), which measures inflation, dropped to a nine-month low in April (0.85%) from 2.05% in March due to a decrease in energy prices and a moderate increase in food product prices.
The costs of gasoline and power (-2.18), as well as primary articles (-1.44), decreased among the index’s three primary components. The Ministry of Commerce and Industry’s data showed that inflation (2.62) was only observed in the manufactured products category. For the sixth consecutive month, headline inflation declined, and for the third consecutive month, the figure stayed below 4%, the level at which the RBI aims to maintain it over the long term.
As food prices continued to decline, retail inflation, as measured by the consumer price index (CPI), decreased to a 69-month low of 3.16% in April, according to statistics released a day earlier. This raised the likelihood that the Reserve Bank of India would lower interest rates for a third consecutive time in its June monetary policy review.
With a weight of 24.38% in the overall WPI, food inflation decreased to 2.5% from 6.1% in April of the previous year. On April 25, vegetable inflation fell sharply by 18.3%, after rising by 23.6% over the same period the previous year.
As crude oil prices continued to decline, fuel and power inflation decreased. After declining by 0.2% on April 24, core inflation increased little to 1.2% on April 25.
