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Retail inflation rises to 4-month high in February; factory output slows to 1.7% in January
Agencies | Mar 12, 2019, 05.57 PM IST
NEW DELHI: Retail inflation rose to four-month high of 2.57 per cent in February, mainly driven by higher food prices.
The retail inflation based on Consumer Price Index (CPI) stood at a 19-month low of 1.97 per cent in January and 4.44 per cent in February 2018.
Economists had predicted consumer price index at 2.43 per cent for February, according to a poll by news agency Reuters.
Food inflation based on CPI, however was in negative at 0.66 per cent. The latest print is higher than (-) 2.24 per cent in January.
The earlier lowest inflation was 2.33 per cent in November 2018. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) factors in retail inflation while deciding at its monetary policy.
In another set of data released by the government, industrial production or factory output slipped to 1.7 per cent in January 2019 from 2.4 per cent in December 2018 on account of slowdown in the manufacturing sector.
Factory output as measured in terms of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) had grown by 7.5 per cent in January last year.
During April-January 2018-19, industrial output grew at 4.4 per cent as against 4.1 per cent in the same period previous fiscal, according to the data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).