Will RBI Slow Rate Hikes?

India's retail inflation cools to 6.77%, still above RBI's comfort limit India's retail inflation in October dropped to 6.77 percent, but still remained above the comfortable limit of 6 percent set by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). October's number is down from 7.41 percent in September and 7 percent in August. The retail inflation in July was 6.7 percent. The latest inflation number is in line with RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das's prediction on Saturday. He had said that CPI (Consumer Price Index) - which measures the overall change in consumer prices - would be lower than 7 percent. In September, the country's retail inflation had touched 7.41 percent due to high food prices, and supply shocks from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This was the ninth straight month when the CPI number was above the RBI's upper inflation limit of 6 percent. The RBI has the mandate of keeping inflation at 4 percent with a two percent variation on either side - that sets the lower limit at 2 and the upper limit at 6 percent. However, India's retail inflation breached the upper limit in January and has been above it since then. In April, May, June, and August, the inflation was above 7 percent. Earlier today, the Centre put out the Wholesale Price Inflation (WPI) numbers for October. The WPI for the month of October stood at 8.39 percent against 10.7 percent in September, which is a decline of over 2 percent. The Commerce and Industry Ministry said that the decline in WPI inflation in the month of October can be attributed to a drop in the price of mineral oils, basic metals, fabricated metal products (except machinery and equipment), textiles, other non-metallic products, minerals, etc..