New Delhi, Jan 12 (ANI): Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday said he is confident that moderation in inflation would continue in the coming months, though softening in the prices of manufactured goods, despite the rapid decline in non-food primary inflation, may be more gradual.
Mukherjee, who was reacting to the weekly Wholesale Price Index (WPI) for primary articles for the week ending December 24, 2011 that was released today, maintained that the headline inflation should be between six and seven percent by March end.
The weekly WPI for primary articles, which was released today, shows that the food inflation continues to be negative for the second week in a row at -2.90 percent. The inflation in primary articles is now 0.51 per cent as against 0.10 per cent in the preceding week.
Mukherjee said that as far as the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) figures for November 2011 which have also been released today, are concerned, there is a strong recovery over the previous month when there was a contraction in IIP by about (-) 4.7 percent (revised).
"The overall growth is estimated at 5.9 per cent over November 2010," he added.
Mukherjee further said though growth in capital goods continues to be negative (-) 4.6 percent, yet there has been a strong revival of growth in consumer goods at over 13 per cent with consumer non-durables goods growing faster than the consumer durables goods.
Pranab Mukherjee said that the good news for this year so far has been the strong performance of electricity sector, which has recorded a growth of 9.5 percent in the period April-November 2011 as against 4.5 percent in the same period last year.
"We need to build on this recovery with a stronger performance of capital goods and therefore investments, to recover the growth momentum in the remaining months of the current financial year. The policy focus will have to be accordingly adjusted," he added. (ANI)
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