India’s economic calendar this week will focus on retail inflation, foreign exchange reserves and banking sector trends.
Retail inflation data on November 12
The government will release retail inflation data for October on November 12.
Higher food prices were the main reason for the increase. Food inflation, measured by the Consumer Food Price Index (CFPI), rose to 7.74 per cent in September from 5.97 per cent in August, an increase of 1.77 percentage points.
Overall retail inflation increased by 71 basis points during the same period. The October data will show whether food price pressures have continued to push up household inflation.
Forex reserves data on November 13
The RBI will release foreign exchange reserves data for the week ended November 6 on November 13.
India’s forex reserves fell by $2.691 billion to $717.056 billion in the week ended October 30, according to RBI data. In the previous week, reserves had declined by $1.269 billion to $719.748 billion.
The reserves had reached a record high of $785.706 billion in the week ended September 4, supported by strong foreign currency inflows through a special concessional swap window for deposits from the Indian diaspora. Banks raised a record $133 billion through the deposits.
Reserves have declined since then. Experts have linked the fall to the use of funds raised through Foreign Currency Non-Resident (Bank) or FCNR(B) deposits and the RBI’s dollar sales to support the rupee.
Foreign currency assets, the largest component of the reserves, fell by $2.088 billion to $591.118 billion in the week ended October 30.
Deposit growth data on November 13
Deposit growth data will also be released on November 13, offering an update on how quickly money is flowing into banks.
India’s deposit growth slowed to 16.7 per cent in the fortnight ended October 16, from 17.8 per cent two weeks earlier. Deposit growth averaged 14.71 per cent between 1998 and 2026. It reached a high of 29.3 per cent in January 2008 and a low of 2.7 per cent in December 2017.
