India CPI eases, rate cut expected

New Delhi

INDIA's retail inflation unexpectedly slowed despite crop damage from unseasonal rains, boosting the possibility that central bank governor Raghuram Rajan will cut rates outside the review cycle for a third time this year.

Consumer prices rose 5.17 per cent in March from a year earlier after a 5.37 per cent increase in February, the statistics ministry said in a statement in New Delhi on Monday. The median of 38 estimates in a Bloomberg survey of economists had predicted a 5.41 per cent gain.