Pakistan registers inflation at 11.3% during April

Pakistan registers inflation at 11.3% during April

Wednesday, May 3, 2012: Pakistan has been struck with high inflation due to increase in fuel prices. During the month of April the inflation rate was clocked in at 11.3 %.

Sohail Ahmad, Statistics Division Secretary, said, “Consumer Price Index (CPI increased to 11.27% in April over the corresponding month last year.”

 “The impact of increase in energy prices have started appearing in the index and also surged the monthly jump by 1.83% in April over March – the highest in 14 months,” said Sohail. The last time there was such a massive monthly
jump was in September 2010 when it rose 2.1% due to the devastating floods that choked the food supply chain in the country.

Sohail said the chain reaction of fuel price increasing transportation charges also became one of main factors in resurgence of inflationary pressure.

There was an increase of 18.4% in prices of housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuel groups in April over a year ago, according to statistics released by Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS). The group has 29.41% weight in
overall CPI basket. The transport group prices, having 7.2% weight in CPI basket, increased 28.8% in the same period.

He, however, went on to say that despite resurgence the government will be able to achieve its annual average inflation target of 12%, as average inflation during the first ten months, July 2011 to April 2012, remained at 19.40%.

Non-food and non-energy inflation, which is exogenous to all seasonal shocks, also remained in double digits. PBS reported that core inflation – non-food and non-energy – rose to 10.8%.

Last Thursday, the PBS rebased the economy from 1999-00 to 2005-06 that has trigged a widespread controversy. It not only decreased the size of the economy by Rs2.5 trillion but also caused less than expected economic growth in
the outgoing fiscal year.

Amid calls of suspending Secretary Statistics and PBS Director General Arif Cheema, Sohail Ahmad responded for the first time to accusations saying that he did the job without proper consultation and approval of the competent authority.

“Due to time constraints and issue in seeking time for holding a meeting of PBS Governing Council, we decided to go ahead and rebase the economy,” said Sohail.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=21302

Posted by Wajahat Javed on May 3 2012. Filed under Business, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry