India's Wholesale Prices Hit 2017 Low on Falling Food Prices
- Decline gives Reserve Bank of India more room to cut rates
- Fuel, power, lighting prices buck trend to show accleration
Customers pick tomatoes at a stall in a vegetable market in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, India, on Monday, Oct. 12, 2015. Quelling food costs is critical for the government's popular support amid an election in Bihar state, as well as its goal of keeping overall inflation in check in a nation where about 277 million people live on less than $1.9 per day.
Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/BloombergIndia’s wholesale price inflation slowed in May from a year earlier on the back of falling food costs, indicating subdued price pressures in the pipeline and adding to expectations that the central bank may lower interest rates in coming months.
* Wholesale price index rises 2.17 percent in May from a year earlier, compared with a median estimate of 2.9 percent in a Bloomberg survey of economists
* Food prices were down 2.27 percent, year-on-year, Commerce Ministry says in a statement
* Fuel, power, lighting prices rose 11.69 percent.
* Last month, India revised the base year for the wholesale price index and brought it in line with the consumer price index