India’s annual retail inflation in January rose above the central bank’s upper threshold for the first time in three months, on higher food prices, vindicating last week’s hawkish monetary policy stance.
India’s annual retail inflation rate rose to 6.52% in January from 5.72% in December, government data showed on Monday.
January’s retail inflation was above the Reserve Bank of India’s upper targeted limit of 6% for the first time since October and much higher than the 5.9% estimate, according to a Reuters poll of 44 analysts.
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“Clearly, the moderation in inflation in the previous two months was not broad based and not durable signaling we are not out of the woods yet,” said Sakshi Gupta, economists at HDFC Bank.
Food price inflation, which accounts for nearly 40% of the consumer price index (CPI) basket, rose to 5.94% in January from 4.19% in December. The prices of cereals and milk continued to rise.
Prices of cereals rose 16.12% year-on-year, milk rose 8.79% and eggs rose by 8.78% from last year, even as prices of vegetables fell 11.7%.
Last week, The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) hiked its key repo rate by a quarter percentage point and surprised markets by leaving the door open to more tightening, saying core inflation remained high.
India’s core inflation in January was nearly flat at 6.09% to 6.1% from last month, according to two economists.
The likelihood of more rate hikes, which had diminished after two previous inflation prints of below 6%, has now increased as the latest figure confirms the RBI’s fear, economists said.
“The unexpectedly large jump in headline consumer price inflation in January to 6.5% y/y is a clear challenge to our view that the hiking cycle is at an end,” Shilan Shah of Capital Economics said.
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