Palaniappan Chidambaram, speaking in an interview two days after unveiling his 2008-09 budget, said he aimed to contain inflation at about 4 per cent but this would depend on how world food and commodity prices panned out in the coming year. The rupee gained more than 12 per cent against the dollar in 2007, largely driven by huge capital inflows, rising interest rates and a weakening dollar, hurting some labour-intensive export sectors and complicating management of monetary policy. “I don’t know whether the rupee will appreciate but even if it does I don’t think it will appreciate as sharply as it did in 2007,” Chidambaram said at his residence in the capital. The partially convertible rupee closed at 40.01/02 per dollar on Friday. It hit a near-decade high of 39.16 last November, driven up by portfolio inflows into the stock market, but last month slipped to a five-month low of 40.25.