MUMBAI (Reuters) - India's annual consumer price inflation eased further to 2.18 percent in May, driven down by cooling food prices, government data showed on Monday.
The rise was lower than the 2.60 percent forecast by economists in a Reuters poll, and was the lowest since India started publishing an economy-wide consumer price index in 2012. Consumer prices rose 2.99 percent on year in April.
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GAURAV DUA, RESEARCH HEAD, SHAREKHAN LTD, MUMBAI
"RBI had indicated that inflation in first half would be between 2.5 - 3.5 percent and this is lower than that also. This clearly shows that the risk is on the downside."
"This opens up scope for a rate cut in August."
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(Reporting by Suvashree Dey Choudhury, Abhirup Roy, Arnab Paul, Tanvi Mehta; Compiled by Rafael Nam)