WPI Inflation hits near 2-year low at 2.45% in May, 2019 - All details here

The Wholesale Price Index (WPI) inflation eased down to 2.45% during the month of May, compared to 3.07% in April 2019 and 3.1% in March 2019. With latest numbers, WPI inflation has reached near two-year lows. A year ago for the same month, WPI came in at 4.78%. 

Rate of inflation based on WPI food index alone, which includes food articles from primary articles group and food product from manufactured product group, came in at 5.10% in May 2019, higher from 4.95% in April 2019. 

Meanwhile, manufacturing products which hold 64.23% weightage of WPI, remained unchanged at 118.3 as against previous levels. 

Going forward, the fuel and power index accounting for 13.15% of WPI, slipped gradually by 0.5% to 102.8 (provisional) from 103.3 (provisional) in April month. On the other hand, the index for 'Mineral Oils' group saw a sequential rise by  0.4% to 95.4 (provisional) versus 95 (provisional) for the previous month. The rise in mineral oils item was led by the higher price of LPG (5%), naphtha (3%), petrol and kerosene (2% each) and ATF (1%). 

Moving ahead, primary articles having 22.62% weightage of WPI, increased by 3.3% to 139.2 (provisional) in May 2019 versus 134.7 (provisional)  in April 2019. In this indicator, the index for 'Food Articles' group rose by 3.4% to 150.1 (provisional), on the back of higher price of tea (15%), fruits & vegetables (14%), peas/chawali (6%), maize (5%), poultry chicken (4%), arhar, bajra and pork (3% each), gram and condiments & spices (2% each) and masur, urad, mutton and rajma (1% each).  While, the index for ' Non-Food Articles' group saw an uptick of 2.6% to 126.7 (provisional) because of higher price of floriculture (11%), safflower (kardi seed) (9%), raw cotton (7%), niger seed and castor seed (6% each), gaur seed, soyabean and cottonseed (3% each), groundnut seed and skins (raw) (2% each).