New Delhi/UNI: India's wholesale price index (WPI) based inflation increased to 0.73% in December 2023 from 0.26% in the previous month, data released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry showed on Monday.

After staying in negative territory for the last almost seven months, WPI inflation had turned positive in November last year.

"The annual rate of inflation based on all India Wholesale Price Index (WPI) number is 0.73% (Provisional) for the month of December, 2023 (over December, 2022).

"Positive rate of inflation in December, 2023 is primarily due to increase in prices of food articles, machinery & equipment, other manufacturing, other transport equipment and computer, electronics & optical products etc," said an official statement.

The WPI inflation captures the average movement of wholesale prices of goods and is primarily used as a GDP deflator. It reckons only basic prices and does not include taxes, rebate/trade discounts, transport and other charges.

The month-over-month change in WPI for the month of December, 2023 stood at (-) 0.85% as compared to November, 2023.

As per data from Ministry of Statistics and Programme & Programme Implementation (MoSPI) released last week, retail inflation had hit a four month high of 5.69% in December 2023 primarily due to high food basket inflation.