India's retail inflation rises to 4-month high of 5.69% in December

India’s headline retail inflation rose to four-month high of 5.69 per cent in December 2023, the data released by National Statistical Office (NSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) Friday informed. The Consumer Price Index, or CPI, was 5.55 per cent in November 2023, the data showed. The headline retail inflation has now spent 51 consecutive months of being above the Reserve Bank of India’ (RBI) medium-term target of 4 per cent. However, it has undershot forecasts for the second month in a row. Meanwhile, growth in India’s industrial output fell to 2.4 percent in November from October’s 16-month high of 11.6 per cent as fewer working days on account of Diwali took a hit on production. Also, at 2.4 per cent, the latest industrial growth figure as per the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) is the lowest in eight months. It is also below economists’ expectations of 3.5 per cent. In November 2022, India’s industrial output had grown by 7.6 per cent. For April-November 2023, IIP growth stood at 6.4 per cent as against 5.6 percent in the first eight months of 2022-23. In December 2023, growth was down due to the manufacturing sector, which saw its production rise by a mere 1.2 per cent on a year-on-year basis after having posted an increase of 10.2 per cent in October. The sharp decline in manufacturing output growth was down to the holidays in November , which led to a reduction in working hours and as a result hit production. With inputs from agencies