印度在通胀之中的挣扎

This week, it was expected that the government is going to make some sort of major policy decisions and make an announcement on those to combat high inflation. But analysts say that really did not happen. What did happen is the government did announce a few measures. For example, they gonna continue to ban the exports of onions, which were particularly high in the last few weeks. They are going to try to purchase more commodities, more essential commodities like lentils and cooking oil. Really they say they are going to go after hoarders or the middle men that may be trying to manipulate the markets. But as a whole, the analysts say, those are kind of minor adjustments that probably won’t have a big effect on the inflation numbers, and as you mentioned, food inflation, the really the big deal here, food inflation of higher than any other major Asian economy, here in India, up about 16%, more than 16% in 2010. And as you might imagine, Andrew, that really affects the everyday person and especially, of course, the poor. There are hundreds of millions poor in this country. When those food prices go up like that, it really, really has a deep, deep effect on these families. We have been able to talk to some of the families in the markets who were saying things like “we just gonna buy less because we simply can’t afford to buy what we did”. You know, for example, last year. So this is really having an effect on the country, it could certainly have an effect on the government. The government is watching it very closely. But right now, even this past month, in December, the numbers of inflation are higher than expected. Andrew.

It’s just on the broader issue to that point, Sarah. How will India’s efforts to tackle inflation impact on the broader economy, on economic growth coz it has been so strong.

It has been strong and still will be strong. However, the World Bank is now predicting that the GDP will come down a bit, from what was expected to be about 9.5%, an amazing number for GDP growth down to around 8.4 and that mostly do to these inflationary numbers and rising inflation. The government really needs to get a handle on that. I am certainly for the people of this country but also for India INR.