Inflation to remain at around 9% till November: Nomura

New Delhi: Research firm Nomura has said it expects inflation in India to remain elevated at around 9 per cent till November, before moderating to around 6.8 per cent by end of the current financial year.

“Headline Whole Price Index (WPI) inflation is likely to stay around 9 per cent till November, beyond which we expect it to moderate to reach 6.8 per cent in March 2012, primarily due to base effects,” the agency said in the latest edition of its ‘Asia Economic Alert’.

The base effect in economic terminology refers to a statistical phenomenon in which a low rate of inflation, or any other indicator like sales, during a corresponding period prior to that under review would make a small change in the period under review appear large.

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Similarly, in case of a high base during a given year, a large change in absolute terms would appear small during the corresponding period under review.

Headline inflation in the country has been above the 9 per cent-mark since December, 2010.

Nomura said the moderation in inflation numbers will start to show from December, when it expects the rate of price rise to fall to 8 per cent.

Headline inflation stood at 9.72 per cent in September, the latest month for which data is available. The government and the Reserve Bank had earlier said that they expect inflation to remain at an elevated level till the first half of the year and then show signs of moderation.

Experts, however, have said that inflation is unlikely to fall much in the near future.

“Encouragingly, core inflation has steadily moderated over the past few months. Looking ahead, we expect this trend to continue as both domestic demand and external demand are likely to weaken further,” Nomura said.

Core inflation, as measured by the rate of price rise of non-food manufactured items, declined marginally to 7.69 per cent in September from 7.79 per cent in August. It had touched a high of 7.90 per cent in June.

Manufactured items constitute over 65 per cent of the total WPI basket.

Regarding the RBI’s likely course of action, Nomura said: “We maintain that there will be no further hikes in policy rates by the RBI since developments over the past few months indicate that core inflation has moderated, domestic demand has weakened considerably and the near-term outlook for the global economy remains weak.”

However, at the central bank’s meeting at Jaipur last week, RBI Governor D Subbarao had said the rate hikes have affected industrial activities, but asserted that inflation continues to remain above comfort levels. He also said that interest rates would come down only if inflation eased.

The RBI has already hiked key policy rates 12 times, by a total of 350 basis points, since March, 2010, to tame demand side pressure and curb inflation.

PTI