Wholesale Prices Of Fuel And Power Contract 10.1% In April

While wholesale prices of food articles continued to rise in April, prices of non-food, fuel and power contracted as all economic activity, barring essentials goods and services, stalled during the nationwide lockdown to contain the new coronavirus pandemic.

The WPI food index rose 3.6 percent last month compared with an increase of 5.49 percent in March, according to a press statement released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. The fuel and power index contracted 10.12 percent against a contraction of 1.76 percent in the preceding month.

Amid limited transaction of products in the wholesale market in April, the ministry did not release the data for the manufacturing index, which makes up 64.2 percent of the headline gauge. The headline inflation number as measured by the Wholesale Price Index, too, wasn’t computed.

A Bloomberg poll of 18 economists had estimated the headline WPI index to rise 0.23 percent.

Inflation Internals

• Prices of primary articles contracted 0.79 percent in April against a growth of 3.72 percent in March.
• Prices of food articles rose 2.55 percent compared with an increase of 4.91 percent in the previous month.
• The index of non-food articles contracted 1.17 percent against a rise of 1.94 percent last month.