Inflation: Wholesale inflation reduced due to cheaper grain, electricity, and petrol, but more than 10 percent even in the 15th month

The fall in the prices of cereals, wheat, onion, petrol, electricity, and minerals has brought relief on the wholesale inflation front in June 2022. With this, the trend of increasing wholesale price index (WPI) based inflation for the last three months stopped in June. Yet it has remained above 10 percent for the 15th consecutive month since April 2021.

According to the data released by the government on Thursday, even though there has been a sharp correction in the prices of minerals and basic metals every month, the prices of food articles have remained up. Inflation in food articles rose to 14.39 percent in June, from 12.34 percent in May 2022. Rating agency Icra says that fears of a slowdown in the global market and softening of commodity prices have made minerals and basic metals cheaper. This has brought relief on the wholesale inflation front. However, WPI inflation continues to remain high due to higher prices of fruits, vegetables, and potatoes.

Retail inflation will be 5% by March

SBI's ever-increasing retail inflation may come down by 2 percent to 5 percent by March next year. In June 2022, it came down marginally to 7.01 percent. SBI said in the report that the retail inflation rate in the country has been above 6 percent for the sixth consecutive month. However, in the last two months, the steps taken by the government and the RBI have brought relief on the inflation front. These steps include a reduction in excise duty on petrol and diesel and restrictions on food exports.

Improvement in monsoon and improvement in the supply side may provide relief from inflation in the times to come.

SBI said that at present there is only a 20 to 30 percent chance of a global recession. The main reason for this is rising inflation and aggressively increasing interest rates. The economy may remain in stagnation for a long time.

Coal prices will remain high in the current quarter as well

ICRA said on Thursday that domestic coal prices are likely to remain high in the current quarter because of the difficulties in the supply of coal during the monsoon. In May, the premium on e-auction of coal domestically increased by more than 400 percent. This hurt the cost structure and margins of the parent metal companies.

Relief in July...

ICRA Chief Economist Aditi Nair said global commodity and fuel prices are moderating. At the domestic level also, the prices of food items are gradually coming down. Its impact will be more visible on the wholesale inflation data for July coming next month. It is expected that wholesale inflation will come down to 13 percent in July.

Also Read: Amit Shah on Inflation: Home Minister said – the whole world is facing recession, less impact on India