India's August retail inflation at 4.82% on-year

India's annual retail inflation jumped to 4.82 per cent ​in August from 4.45 per cent in July, driven by higher ‌food and fuel prices and strengthening ​a case for an interest ⁠rate hike in October. The August print is marginally higher than a 4.80 per cent inflation that the economists ‌were expecting in a Reuters poll and marking a third straight month when ‌it was above the Reserve Bank ‌of India's ⁠4 per cent medium-term target .

The central bank ⁠left its benchmark policy rate unchanged at 5.25 per cent last month, but minutes of its last monetary policy meeting ​showed that some ‌RBI officials, including Governor Sanjay Malhotra, favoured a rate hike if inflation spread across segments.

The rate-hike concerns have intensified over the ‌past month as a sustained rise in ​global oil prices threatens to add to inflation pressures, with Brent crude ⁠futures near $108 a barrel. India imports nearly 85 per cent of its oil needs, more than half ‌of it from the Middle East, where the U.S.-Iran war has caused major supply disruptions.

Still, Asia's third-largest economy continues to be an outlier among regional peers such as Indonesia and the Philippines that have raised ‌rates in response to higher energy prices and currency ​volatility. India's food inflation climbed to 5.95 per cent in August from 5.52 per cent in July, on ⁠the back of weak monsoon showers, with sharp increases ⁠in prices of staples such as ginger, onion and garlic.

Transport inflation ‌accelerated to 4.60 per cent in August from 4.43 per cent in the previous month.