India’s inflation may ease below 6pc

India's headline retail inflation may ease below 6 per cent by the fourth quarter of this financial year, bringing an end to the current cycle of rate hikes, analysts said over the weekend.

Following the release of minutes from the central bank's monetary policy committee on Friday, analysts said the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) may hike repo rates by 50-60 basis points by December.

"We expect the RBI to deliver two 25 bps rate hikes at the September and December meetings, taking the repo rate to 5.90 per cent," Rahul Bajoria, chief India economist at Barclays said.

India's consumer inflation dipped to 6.71 per cent in July, easing for the third month in a row, but remained above the RBI's mandated target band of 2 per cent-6 per cent for a seventh straight month.