Foreign Investment- Selective Bonanza

shown a tendency to ease? Some of them belong to the category of consumer durables or less essential consumption goods such as the more expensive varieties of cloth. With foodgrain prices having almost doubled in the course of a single year and the incomes of the majority of the population having remained stationary, it was inevitable that the demand for these type's of goods would slacken and the rise in their prices would be checked after a point. The other type of goods the demand for which is showing signs of slackening are certain intermediate goods and capital goods which are feeling the impact of successive cuts in public sector investment. On the other hand, there are no indications at all of any easing of the prices of food articles which, after all, are what matter for most of the population. Thus in just the four-week period between August 8 and September 7, 1974, the wholesale price index for cereals rose by over 4 per cent, that for pulses by 9 per cent and that for all food- grains by over 5 per cent. The decline in prices, of which so much is being made, is thus either of no concern to the large mass of the people or speaks of a further deepening of the economic recession.