India's annual rate of inflation maintained it downward trend and fell further to 5.24 percent for the week ended January 3. The country experienced a decline of 0.67 percent from 5.91 percent the week before. The decline in inflation occurred primarily due to the fall in the prices of food articles. In contrast to the current year, India's annual inflation rate was 4.26 percent during the corresponding week the previous year.

 

The index of the food articles group declined by 0.6 per cent as prices of fruit and vegetables fell by three per cent, and gram, barley, condiments and spices by one per cent each. The index for primary articles declined 0.5 percent to 246.3 from 247.5 the previous week, while that for manufactured products fell 0.1 percent to 200.6 from 200.8. The index of fuel declined by 0.2 per cent due to lower prices of aviation turbine fuel (8 per cent) and light diesel oil (3 per cent).

Meanwhile, naphtha became expensive by three per cent, and among food items jowar, tea, urad moong and rice moved up by one per cent each, and masoor by two per cent. The country's inflation rate soared to 12.91 per cent in August last year. The inflation rate came down to single digit on November 2008 and since there has been a downward trend.