2020.01.1311:49:00UTC+00India's Inflation Accelerates On Food Prices

India's consumer price inflation accelerated in December driven by higher food prices, data from the statistics ministry showed Monday.

Inflation increased notably to 7.35 percent from 5.54 percent in November. In the same period last year, inflation was 2.11 percent.

The consumer food price index advanced 14.12 percent annually, faster than the 10.01 percent in November. Prices had fallen 2.65 percent in December 2018.

Housing costs increased 4.3 percent and clothing and footwear prices were up 1.5 percent.

On a monthly basis, consumer prices gained 1.21 percent and the food price index climbed 2.37 percent.

At the December meeting, policymakers of the Reserve Bank of India revised up the CPI inflation projection to 5.1-4.7 percent for the second half of the financial year 2019-20 and 4.0-3.8 percent for the first half of fiscal 2020-21.