RBI chief: Consumer inflation data not robust enough
MUMBAI (Reuters) - India's data points for consumer prices are not robust enough to justify shifting from the current focus on wholesale inflation for monetary policy decisions, Reserve Bank of India Governor Duvvuri Subbarao said on Friday.
"The new CPI has only 19 data points, which is not sufficiently long for a statistically robust analysis," Subbarao said in a speech.
The central bank should continue to rely on wholesale prices even if a decision is made to shift to the consumer price index as the main inflation indicator, Subbarao added.
The RBI uses wholesale price index as its main inflation indicator although it also monitors consumer prices.
(Reporting by Suvashree Dey Choudhury; Writing by Swati Bhat; Editing by Rafael Nam)
