Nov industrial growth at 8.4%, retail inflation surges to 5.2% in Dec

Less than a month before Finance Minister Arun Jaitley would present Budget 2018, the Narendra Modi-led government’s final full Budget in the present term, there was a mixed bag of good and bad news for the central government in the form of two sets of economic indicators released on Friday by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (Mospi).

Industrial activity in the country, as measured by the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), brought some cheer, rising to a 25-month high of 8.4 per cent in November from 2.2 per cent the previous month. However, the pain for the common man continued, with the rate of retail inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), going past the 5 per cent mark to stand at a 17-month high of 5.2 per cent in December -- mainly on account of high food prices -- compared with a 15-month high of 4.88 per cent the previous month. Annual retail food inflation rose 4.96 percent in December from 4.35 percent in the previous month.

In October, growth in IIP had declined by almost half to a three-month low of 2.2 per cent, despite it being a festival month, from 4.1 per cent the previous month. This was seen as an indication that the restocking after the goods and services tax (GST) roll-out had not given a boost to IIP.

A high rate of inflation in November seemed to have justified the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI’s) stance of a status quo in its monetary policy review earlier last month. Retail inflation breached the central bank's medium-term target for the second straight month in December which could intensify pressure for RBI to raise policy rates in the next few months. RBI had projected inflation to be in the range of 4.3-4.7 per cent in the second half of the year. The RBI holds its next policy review on Feb.
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