By Manoj Kumar
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's retail inflation rate eased in July, strengthening views that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will keep interest rates on hold at its review in October after raising them for a second straight meeting on August 1.
In July, consumer prices rose 4.17 percent from a year earlier, compared with a downwardly revised 4.92 percent in June, the Statistics Ministry said on Monday.
The median forecast of economists polled by Reuters for July was 4.51 percent, with estimates ranging from 3.75 percent to 5.40 percent.
Rupa Rege Nitsure, chief economist at L&T Finance Holdings, said retail inflation significantly slowed due to smaller increases in food prices and housing.
"I expect the RBI (Reserve Bank of India) to take a pause until December at least. However, rupee depreciation remains a major risk to inflation besides the sticky core inflation," she said.
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Graphic: India's retail inflation https://tmsnrt.rs/2MiO9gG
July was the ninth straight month in which inflation was higher than the RBI's medium-term target of 4 percent.
The RBI has raised its benchmark rate by a total of 50 basis points at its past two meetings, to 6.5 percent, while warning about inflationary pressures.
The RBI's next policy decision is on Oct. 5.
The falling rupee , which has so far lost over 8 percent this year, has pushed up prices of imported items such as petroleum products, commodities, electronics and engineering equipment.
On Monday, the rupee touched an all-time low of 69.95 against the dollar on concerns about contagion from Turkey spilling over to other emerging markets.
The International Monetary Fund, in its annual report on India last week, warned that average inflation is likely to rise to 5.2 percent in the 2018/19 fiscal year from a 17-year low of 3.6 percent in the previous fiscal year.
The IMF expects the central bank to gradually tighten monetary policy in order to tame inflation.
Inflation pressures in the world's sixth largest economy are expected to build up amid rising international crude oil prices - putting pressure on companies to raise prices.
Retail gasoline prices have climbed 10.4 percent this year and diesel prices by 15.2 percent- hurting corporate profit margins.
In the last year, the cost of compressed natural gas (CNG) for automobiles and taxis in the capital Delhi has gone up 34.7 percent. Airline ticket prices are also climbing due to a 45 percent rise in fuel costs.
However, annual retail food inflation, which accounts for about half of the CPI index, eased to 1.37 percent in July, compared with 2.91 percent rise in the previous month.
Core annual consumer price inflation was seen at around 6.2 percent in July, easing slightly from 6.3 percent in the previous month, according to analysts.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is expected to seek a second term in national elections in 2019, has argued that higher state spending on subsidised housing and infrastructure would boost economic growth and dampen inflationary pressures.
India's $2.6 trillion economy grew at a 7.7 percent annual rate in the April-June quarter, and is projected to grow nearly 7.5 percent in the fiscal year ending in March 2019, up from 6.7 percent the previous year.
(Reporting by Manoj Kumar; Editing by Richard Borsuk and Darren Schuettler)
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
