Indian inflation stays high in Oct.

Indian headline inflation, measured by wholesale price index, stood at 9.73 percent slightly higher than 9.72 percent in September, said a statement by Indian Ministry of Commerce and Industry on Monday. This marks the 11th consecutive month since December 2010 with year-on-year inflation above 9 percent. Inflation with primary articles eased to 11.4 percent from 11.8 percent in September on 16.16 percent drop of onion prices. Still, inflation in fuel and power sector picked up from 14.79 percent to 14.91 percent in October resulting from hikes of petroleum prices. Heavyweight manufactured products maintained stability of prices with inflation in October at 7.66 percent compared with 7. 69 percent in previous month. The statement also kept final inflation data in August unchanged at 9.7 percent, which could mean the peaking of inflation. Indian officials predicted that the inflation would start to decline in upcoming December or later and would go down to around 7 percent by March 2012.