India’s retail inflation is likely to have retreated below 6% in September after two months over the central bank’s tolerance threshold, thanks to cooling prices for most essential commodities and food items, barring pulses that are seeing a sustained uptick in market prices.
Bank of Baroda economists, who put out a monthly index on essential commodities’ prices, expect consumer price rise last month to have dropped to 5.7% from 6.8% in August and a 15-month high of 7.4% in July. Food inflation stood at around 10% in August.
The National Statistical Office will release the Consumer Price Index (CPI) numbers for September this Thursday. Last Friday, the Monetary Policy Committee of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) revised its average inflation projections for the July to September quarter from 6.2% to 6.4%. The upgraded estimate implies that the RBI expects September’s retail inflation print to be between 4.9% and 5%.
