India’s August inflation rate falls to five-year low
New Delhi: India’s annual rate of inflation, based on official wholesale price index, fell to a near-five-year low of 3.74 percent for August, according to data released by the commerce and industry ministry Monday.
The annual inflation rate stood at 5.19 percent for the previous month and 6.99 percent for August of 2013. Notably, the annual inflation rate for food articles in August fell to 5.15 percent from 19.17 percent in the like month of the previous year.
The decline was the sharpest for onions — from 272.54 percent in August of last year to (-)44.70 percent. The fall was also quite sharp, for vegetables — from 80.96 percent in to (-)4.88 percent.
The wholesale price index numbers also suggested a drop in the inflation rate for eggs, meat and fish from 20.15 percent to (-)5.87 percent. While for rice the drop was from 21.33 percent to 5.44 percent, for wheat it was 9.38 percent to 0.67 percent.
Manufactured products, however, showed an increase from 2.31 percent to 3.45 percent.
