Central Banks

RBI Chief Pushes Back on Calls to Cut Food From Inflation Target

  • Food, that makes up nearly half of India CPI, rose 9.24% Sept.
  • Das says using core inflation is like ‘not having a target’
Inflation spiked in September on the back of food prices, with vegetable costs alone surging 36%.
Photographer: Anindito Mukherjee/Bloomberg
Lock
This article is for subscribers only.

India’s central bank Governor Shaktikanta Das rejected the proposal of a top government adviser to strip volatile food prices from inflation targets, saying such a move would make no sense to normal consumers.

Eliminating food, which accounts for nearly half the Asian nation’s consumer inflation basket, would amount to “not having a target,” the Reserve Bank of India chief said at a Peterson Institute for International Economics forum in Washington on Friday.