India’s retail inflation climbs to 5.59 percent in December

India’s retail inflation reached 5.59% in December, majorly because of an uptick in food prices, as per recently released government data.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) based retail inflation was 4.91% in November 2021 and 4.59% in December 2020. As per the data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO), food inflation rose to 4.05% in December this fiscal compared to 1.87% in the preceding month.

The Reserve Bank, which mainly factors in the retail inflation while arriving at its bi-monthly monetary policy, expects the inflation print to be somewhat higher over the rest of the year as base effects turn adverse.

According to the RBI, it is expected that headline inflation will peak in the fourth quarter of the current fiscal and soften thereafter.