India's retail inflation rises to 7.59 percent in January

Source: Xinhua | 2020-02-13

India's retail inflation rises to 7.59 percent in January, data released by the ministry of statistics and programme implementation on Wednesday said.

"The inflation based on Consumer Price Index (CPI) in January this year is 7.59," the government data said. "It was 7.35 percent in December last year and 1.97 per cent in January 2019."

However, food inflation eased to 13.63 percent in January this year from 14.19 percent in December last year.

The CPI of 7.59 percent is the highest level recorded during the past six years. The spike has triggered further growth concerns amid a slowing economy.

India's central banking institution -- the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which tracks consumer inflation primarily to formulate its monetary policy, last week kept the repo rate -- or the key interest rate at which it lends short-term funds to commercial banks -- unchanged at 5.15 percent.

Meanwhile, India's factory activity growth, determined by the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), also contracted by 0.3 percent in December, weighed by a decline in the manufacturing sector, the government data showed on Wednesday.