Inflation

There is some uncertainty and prices of some of the edible oils have gone up by $200 in the international market. India imports sunflower seeds from Ukraine as imports are relatively cheaper even when India's sunflower seed production ranges between 60,000-75,000 tonnes. With a view to keep prices in check and also check the rise in prices of domestic edible oils due globally hike.

"I think it's a little early to make projections and hypothesize about circumstances," he added on Thursday. "If I were a Commissioner or an (Agriculture) Secretary in a European country, I would probably have a much different feeling about this," he said. "I think we in the US are fortunate. We have tremendous capacity; we have tremendous production capacity."

India's consumer price indexed inflation is expected to moderate in February 2022 from the levels in January, said Motilal Oswal Financial Services. Notably, high commodities cost especially of transport fuel prices triggered a wider inflationary trend in January 2022. As a result, India's main inflation gauge -- Consumer Price Index (CPI) -- which denotes retail inflation surged on a sequential as well as year-on-year basis.

"Onion buffer of 2.08 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) built in current year under the Price Stabilisation Fund has been released in a calibrated and targeted manner to states/cities where prices are increasing over the previous month and also to source markets such as Lasalgaon and Pimpalgaon to augment the availability in these key mandis,"Food and Public Distribution Ministry statement said.

Notably, high commodities cost especially of transport fuel prices triggered a wider inflationary trend. As a result, India's main inflation gauge -- Consumer Price Index (CPI) -- which denotes retail inflation surged on a sequential as well as year-on-year basis. The index rose to 6.01 per cent last month from 5.66 per cent in December 2021 and 4.06 per cent recorded for January 2021.

Accordingly, the annual rate of inflation, based on wholesale prices, eased to 12.96 percent last month from 13.56 percent reported for December 2021. However, on a year-on-year (YoY) basis, the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) data furnished by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry showed an exponential rise last month over January 2021, when it stood at 2.51 percent.

The consumer price index (CPI) last month rose 0.6 per cent from the previous month and 7.5 per cent from a year earlier, the largest 12-month increase since June 1982, according to the Department's Bureau of Labour Statistics. The latest data marked a new high after the CPI in December rose 0.5 per cent from the previous month and 7.0 per cent from a year earlier, reports Xinhua news agency.

Besides, inflation projection for 2021-22 is retained at 5.3 per cent, with Q4FY22 at 5.7 per cent on account of unfavourable base effects that are expected to ease subsequently. On Thursday, the RBI retained its key short-term lending rates during the sixth and final monetary policy review of FY22. Further, the growth-oriented accommodative stance was retained to give a push to economic activity.

Georgieva noted that there are "three main obstacles" on the path to the global recovery, namely the pandemic, rising inflation and high levels of debt, reports Xinhua news agency. "We need to be like a tiger in this year to deal with the complex challenges ahead, and top of mind is indeed policy agility," he said, referring to the Chinese New Year of the Tiger, which started on Tuesday.

"I want to recognize the toll inflation exacts on working people who are concerned about how far their paychecks will go for essentials like food, housing, and transportation," Sarah Bloom Raskin, a former Fed governor and Biden's nominee as the Fed's vice chair for supervision, said at a hearing before the Senate Banking Committee.