Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee today said that although food inflation has come down drastically,

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inflationary pressures were still visible in the manufacturing sector.

"Food inflation has come down but it is still sticky in manufacturing sector and I think we have to see how it (inflation) behaves in manufacturing sector," Mukherjee told reporters here today.

He blamed the spiralling global crude oil prices in fuelling inflationary pressures in India.

"Imported inflation will depend upon how International crude oil prices will behave in future," Mukherjee said, adding that global crude oil rates had jumped from $ 90 per barrel last year to cross $ 107 at the international level.

He said food inflation, which touched the peak of 22 per cent in February 2010, dropped considerably to less than 1 per cent last month.

"Inflationary pressure remained for 22 months. The food inflation was as high as 22 per cent in February 2010 which has come down to less than 1 per cent in December 2011," Mukherjee said.

Headline or overall inflation has come down from 9.6 per cent to 7.4 per cent in December, he added.

Mukherjee applauded the Reserve Bank for cutting the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) in its quarterly review of monetary policy yesterday, while keeping in mind the inflationary pressure in manufacturing sector.

"The RBI correctly made a balance in its policy by reducing CRR from 6 per cent to 5.5 per cent which will improve liquidity for banking sector to meet demand and supply," he said, adding that the interest rates remained unchanged.