February retail inflation eases to Retail 6.58 pct; IIP sees a 2 pct on year growth

Retail inflation in February cooled down to 6.58 per cent as against the January levels when the Consumer Price Index (CPI) reached a seven month high of 7.59 per cent. Meanwhile, the Consumer Food Price Index (CFPI) also came down to 10.81 per cent in February from 13.63 pct in January.

The retail inflation numbers were released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI)  on Thursday. The CPI (Rural, Urban, Combined) numbers are on Base 2012=100 for the month of February 2020, according to the government release.

Separately, the country’s factory output, which is measured in terms of Index of Industrial Production (IIP) also saw a 2 per cent on-year growth to 137.1 during the month of January. In January 2019, the IIP had grown by 1.6 per cent. The industrial growth during the period of April 2019-January 2020 rose 0.5 per cent from the corresponding period year ago, the government release said. The IIP growth was 4.4 per cent during the same period last year, the data showed.

The Indices of Industrial Production for the Mining, Manufacturing and Electricity sectors for the month of January 2020 stood at 124.3, 137.6 and 155.6 respectively, with the corresponding growth rates of 4.4 per cent, 1.5 per cent and 3.1 per cent as compared to January 2019, the release said. The cumulative growth in these three sectors during April-January 2019-20 over the corresponding period of 2018-19 has been 1.0 per cent, 0.3 per cent and 0.9 per centrespectively.

In terms of industries, eleven out of the twenty three industry groups in the manufacturing sector have shown positive growth during the month of January 2020 as compared to the corresponding month of the previous year, the release said.

The industry group ‘Manufacture of tobacco products’ has shown the highest positive growth of 22.8 per cent followed by 14.1 per cent in ‘Manufacture of basic metals’ and 9.0 per cent in ‘Manufacture of furniture’, the release said.

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On the other hand, the industry group ‘Printing and reproduction of recorded media’ has shown the highest negative growth of (-) 16.3percent followed by (-) 11.6percent in ‘Manufacture of computer, electronic and optical products’ and (-) 10.6 percent in ‘Manufacture of motor vehicles, trailers and semi-trailers’, the release further said.