Inflation

The week on week sharp decline in wholesale price is more than the RBI's expectation of 3% set for the March 2009. However on year on year basis inflation has moved up from 4.67% in April-March 2007-08 to 8.37% in April-March 2008-09.

The annual rate of inflation, calculated on point-to-point basis, stood at 0.26% for the week ended 28 March 2009 as compared to 0.31% for the previous week and 7.75% during the corresponding week of the previous year.

The manufactured products major contributor in total WPI with 63.75% weight rose by 0.2% to 200.3 from 200.0 for the previous week. The food product, chemical and chemical product and textile group recorded rise for the week ended 28 Mach 2009 compared with previous week. The index for textiles group rose by 1.2% to 140.6 from 138.9 for the previous week due to higher prices of cotton yarn-cones, hessian cloth and cotton yarn-'hanks (3% each) and hessian & sacking bags and other cotton yarn (2% each). The index for food products group also rose by 0.05% to 218.9 from 218.8 for the previous week due to higher prices of imported edible oil (6%), malted food and rice bran oil (2% each) and oil cakes, gingelly oil and groundnut oil (1% each). However, the prices of sugar (1%) declined. On a flip side the index for paper and paper products group declined by 0.1% to 204.0 from 204.2 for the previous week due to lower prices of newsprint (1%).