India's retail inflation rises sharply to 5.59% in Dec; IIP grows 1.4% in Nov

India's retail inflation rose sharply to 5.59% in the month of December from 4.91% in November, pushed up by rising prices of manufactured items, data released by the government showed on Wednesday.

Inflation as measured by Consumer Price Index (CPI) was 4.59% in the year-ago period.

Food inflation has also increased to 4.05% in December from 1.87% in November.

Analysts in a Reuters poll had predicted annual inflation at 5.8%.

Even though the inflation print is sharply higher, it is still within the range of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) target range of 2%-6%.

"While today's CPI print suggests the seasonal decline in food prices has begun to finally materialize, unfavourable base and elevated core inflation amid continued supply side bottlenecks due to Omicron will keep the headline print elevated around 5% over the next couple of months," said Garima Kapoor, Economist - Institutional equities, Elara Capital.

Meanwhile, industrial production for the month of November grew by 1.4% as compared to (-)1.6 % in the same month last year, according to the data released by ministry of statistics and programme implementation (MoSPI). IIP surged 3.2% in the month of October.

Mining sector grew by 5% in the month of November as compared to a contraction of 5.4% in the same month last year.

Meanwhile, manufacturing sector growth was weak at 0.9% in the month of November as against de-growth of 1.6 in the same period last year.