India’s retail inflation slipped below the 7% mark for the first time since April, easing to 6.71% in July from 7.01% in June. This is the seventh month in a row that the pace of price rise has been over the upper tolerance limit of 6% pursued by the central bank’s monetary policy committee.
Rural inflation eased from 7.09% in June to 6.8% in July, while urban consumers faced a price rise of 6.49% compared to 6.86% a month earlier. Inflation in Consumer Food Prices moderated to 6.75% in July from 7.75% in June.
India’s industrial output grew 12.3% in June, moderating from 19.6% this May, led by a 16.4% uptick in electricity and 12.5% growth in manufacturing. Mining activity grew 7.5% in the month.
The Index of Industrial Production (IIP), however, grew only 0.14% over May 2022 levels, with Manufacturing being the only sector to report a sequential uptick in output in June, rising 1.34%.
Production of consumer durables and capital goods led the growth trajectory among use-based categories for the second month in a row, rising 26.1% and 23.8%, respectively, in June.
This is the third successive month of output growth for consumer durables after six months of contraction. By contrast, consumer non-durables output growth crawled for the second month in a row, rising just 2.9% in June after a 0.9% rise in May.
Primary goods output rose 13.7%, followed by intermediate goods (11%) and infrastructure/construction items which grew 8%. However, these three sectors reported a sequential decline from May’s output levels, with primary goods slipping 3.8%, intermediate goods 2.9% and construction goods 2.7%.
