BREAKING NEWS: Inflation turns negative again

India’s annual rate of inflation, based on monthly wholesale price index (WPI), stood at minus 4.54 per cent for September 2015 (over September 2014), according to the provisional data released by the Office of the Economic Adviser, Ministry of Commerce and Industry. It’s expected to climb in the coming months as the big drop in fuel prices falls out of the year-on-year calculation, but core inflation, which strips out volatile components like food and energy, also remains weak at 1.0 per cent.

It also attributed the rise to the Muslim holiday period, which it said, might have contributed to higher food prices, saying that the food sub-index as a whole recorded a marginal increase by 10.2 per cent (year-on-year) in September from 10.1 per cent in August.

Food inflation eased notably to 2.7 percent from 3.7 percent, while non-food inflation slowed only marginally to 1 percent from 1.1 percent.

Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) says the consumer inflation rose to 9.4 percent year-on-year in September, up from 9.3 percent in August 2015.

In Britain CPI has been held back this year thanks to low oil and commodities prices, and by the strength of the pound, which makes imported goods cheaper.

Compared to a year ago, even the PPI or the producer price index dropped 5.9 percent which was expected.

Among the various categories under the general index, the inflation percentage in September was higher in “clothing and footwear” at 6 percent, and “fuel and light” at 5.42 percent.

“Our forecast is that annual CPI inflation will start to creep upwards early in 2016, but will remain below the two per cent target well into 2017”, he said. The CPI for September previous year was at 5.63 percent.

Stubbornly weak producer prices are threatening to erode firms’ profits and add to their debt burdens, conditions which analysts expect to persist for the remainder of the year.

Persistent deflationary pressure creates room for further fiscal easing, including cuts to interests rates and reserve requirement ratios (RRR), according to investment firm China worldwide Capital Corporation.

CPI inflation will remain subdued and PPI inflation is likely to remain in deep negative territory due to overcapacity, said Zhao.

The inflation rate for food articles stood at 0.69% in Primary Articles and -0.75% in Manufactured Products.