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'Oil price rise no big threat to inflation'
January 06, 2003 16:41 IST
The deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India said on Monday that a rise in oil prices would not push up the country's inflation rate significantly."After all, we saw an oil price increase from $18-$20 (a barrel) a year ago, but that has not had that kind of an effect (on inflation)," Rakesh Mohan, deputy governor at the Reserve Bank of India, told Reuters on the margins of an international business conference in Hyderabad.
"If it (oil price) does go up, it will have some effect but not a big deal," he said.
US light crude rose to $26.31 a barrel in end-March 2002, at the close of the last financial year, from around $18 in mid-January 2002.
It has risen further this financial year, hitting a two-year high of $33.65 a barrel on December 30.
India's inflation rate based on the wholesale price index, a widely used benchmark, was 3.22 per cent in the week ended December 21.
Mohan declined to reply to queries about interest rates, bond yields and the rupee.
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