India's Feb wholesale price inflation rises to 13.11%

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SME Times News Bureau | 14 Mar, 2022
High manufactured goods' prices pushed up India's February 2022 wholesale inflation on a sequential as well as on a year-on-year basis.

The annual rate of inflation, based on wholesale prices, rose to 13.11 per cent last month from 12.96 per cent reported for January 2022.

Similarly, on a year-on-year (YoY) basis, the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) data furnished by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry showed an exponential rise last month over February 2021, when it stood at 4.83 per cent.

"The high rate of inflation in February 2022 is primarily due to rise in prices of mineral oils, basic metals, chemicals and chemical products, crude petroleum and natural gas, food articles and non-food articles etc. as compared to the corresponding month of the previous year," the Ministry said in its review of 'Index Numbers of Wholesale Price in India' for February.

The month over month change in WPI index for the month of February 2022 stood at 1.4 per cent as compared to January 2022.

As per the data, the primary articles segment, which has one of the highest weightage in the WPI, increased at a slower rate of 13.39 per cent in February as compared to 13.87 per cent reported for January 2022.

In the fuel and power segment, which has a weightage of 13.15 per cent, the rise in inflation was recorded at 31.5 per cent from 32.27 per cent in January 2022. However, the cost of manufactured products, which has a weightage of 64.23 per cent, increased at a faster rate of 9.84 per cent from 9.42 per cent.

Similarly, the growth rate of WPI food index, consisting of food articles from the primary articles group and food products from the manufactured products group, rose to 8.47 per cent from 9.55 per cent.

"The WPI inflation accelerated mildly in February 2022, despite a favourable base effect, led by manufactured products, non-food primary articles, crude oil and natural gas, and printed above expectations," ICRA Chief Economist, Aditi Nayar, said.

Acuite Ratings & Research's Chief Analytical Officer Suman Chowdhury said: "Clearly, this upward momentum is set to continue in March 2022 as the crude oil prices have shot up further and is currently hovering close to $110 per barrel (Brent).

"The inflation levels would have been slightly higher had there not been a sequential price contraction in the wholesale food category driven by the seasonal drop in vegetable and potato prices. The inflation in manufactured products have risen sequentially to almost 1 per cent and also increased on a YoY basis to 9.8 per cent."