Retail inflation up at 5.41%

In the rural areas, retail inflation rose to 5.95 per cent and for urban sector it was at 4.71 per cent during the month. For pulses, the combined inflation rate was a whopping 46.08 percent.

The inflation rate for food articles rose to 5.20% in Primary Articles and 0.92% in Manufactured Products. This has inched up from 5.25 percent, 5.18 percent and 5.47 percent.

Earlier in the day, separate data released by the government showed that wholesale prices fell 1.99% in November, the slowest decline since January.

The twelve-month moving average rate was 1.1 per cent.

Nigeria’s food prices has hit a record high and inflation is worsening, recent figures from the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, has revealed.

The pace of increases recorded by the “All items less Farm Produce” or Core sub-index, which excludes the prices of volatile agricultural produce increased at the same pace for the second consecutive month, increasing by 8.7% in November. These were mainly due to higher prices for restaurant services, vegetables and cigarettes respectively.

This is because global commodity prices continue to remain subdued and the on-going kharif harvest is expected to put a check on pulse and onion prices in the coming months, even though some risks to food inflation from a deficient monsoon (14% drop in shower from the benchmark level in 2015) still persist.

The business chamber elaborated that RBI has met the conditions of budgeted WPI and CPI, which provides the central bank room for further rate cut to substitute for weakening global demand.

Beneath the headline numbers, inflation for fuel and power group stood at -11.09 percent year-on-year versus -16.32 percent in November.

Devendra Kumar Pant, chief economist at India Ratings & Research, said both wholesale and retail inflation, although marginally higher than his expectations, is according to trend.