India Suspends Release of Headline Retail Inflation Data for Lockdown Period

India said on Friday it was putting off the release of headline consumer price inflation numbers for April and May, a period that include a more-than two-month lockdown imposed to combat the coronavirus pandemic, due to inadequate data collection.

The headline numbers for retail inflation for April and May and industrial output for April were not released "in view of the continued limited transactions of products in the market" during the lockdown and problems in collecting of adequate data, the Statistics Ministry said in a statement.

However, limited data released by the ministry showed that annual retail food inflation eased to 9.28% in May, from 10.5% in the previous month.