Inflation Remains The Same At 3.07%

Inflation remained the same at 3.07 per cent for week ended October 13, 2007 regardless of increase in costs of food items and a few manufactured products.

The goods including fruits and vegetables, pulses, egg meat and fish turned costly during the week.

Simultaneously, some manufactured food articles such as flour, maida became inexpensive.

In the same period of the previous year, the wholesale price-based index was 5.46 percent.

The price index stayed under the RBI’s estimation of 5% for this fiscal in the last few weeks, but analysts said that the RBI would not slash the prime interest rates at the plan review on October 30.

Abheek Barua, HDFC Banl Chief Economist said, “Although there are expectations of rate cut, in the given scenario there is very little possibility of lowering the benchmark rates.”

“RBI may not even increase Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) - the percentage of deposits that banks must keep with RBI - in the wake of capital outflow in the past few days,” Mr. Barua added.