BLBG: India’s Wholesale Prices Decline for 11 Straight Months
India’s wholesale prices fell for the 11th straight month as central bank Governor Raghuram Rajan kept monetary policy accommodative.
The wholesale price index dropped 4.54 percent in September from a year earlier, the Commerce Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday, more than the 4.42 percent decline predicted by the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 36 economists. The gauge had fallen 4.95 percent in August.
Rajan cut interest rates by a steeper-than-expected 50 basis points last month and said policy must stay accommodative to the extent possible. Consumer prices gained 4.4 percent in September, faster than August’s 3.7 percent, yet below the central bank’s 6 percent inflation target for the 13th month.
The Reserve Bank of India will now shift focus to its 5 percent CPI target for March 2017, Rajan had said.
