Food inflation falls to a four-year low of 4.35 per cent
15 Dec 2011
Food price inflation in the country fell to a 4-year low of 4.35 per cent during the week ended 3 December 2011 against the previous week's level of 6.6 per cent.
This is the lowest rate of food inflation in India since the week ended 23 February 2008, when the wholesale price index (WPI) stood at 4.28 per cent.
The decline in WPI inflation rate was aided by lower prices of essential items like cereals and vegetables, mainly onions and potatoes.
Food inflation stood at 10.78 per cent during the similar period in the previous year.
The declining trend in food prices is the only bright spot in the economy bedeviled by declining industrial production and rising current account deficit in its foreign trade.
Build-up of food inflation so far during the financial year (beginning 1 April 2011) was 7.15 per cent against 11.86 per cent during the similar period of the previous year.
The index for the 'food articles' group declined by 1.0 per cent to 191.9 (provisional) during the Week ended 3 December 2011 from 193.8 (provisional) during the previous week due to lower prices of fruits and vegetables (down 4 per cent), poultry chicken and urad (down 3 per cent each) and ragi, gram, barley, tea, condiments and spices and arhar (down 1 per cent each). However, the prices of pork (up 6 per cent), beef and buffalo meat and jowar (up 2 per cent each) and bajra, freshwater fish and maize (up 1 per cent each) moved up.
