Pakistan's consumer inflation edged up to 10.49% year-on-year in August, accelerating slightly from 10.3% a month earlier, following the inclusion of rural markets in the inflation survey, the Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday.
Previous inflation figures factored price changes only in Pakistan's urban markets. Under that metric, the inflation rate would have surged to 11.63%.
The spike was driven by higher food and fuel prices, continuing the squeeze on household budgets. Prices of food products such as chicken, tomatoes and onions, which make up a third of the overall basket used to calculate inflation, rose 3.42% from the previous month.-Reuters
BR Staff Reporter Abdul Rashid Azad adds: Member National Accounts PBS, Dr Bahrawar Jan while briefing the media, here on Wednesday on the latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) indices and change of base year from 2007-08 to 2015-16 revealed that on the basis of old base year, the CPI has crossed double digit mark on annual basis, while on the basis of new base year it is slightly under double digit mark.
He further said that as per calculations of 2007-08 base year, the CPI inflation during August 2019 as compared to August 2018 was recorded at 11.63 percent from 229.27 points to 255.94 points but on the basis of 2015-16 it was recorded at 10.49 percent from 113.93 points to 125.89 points on year on year (YOY) basis.
Under the new system, the PBS analyzes CPI of urban and rural areas separately and then combines both results to determine a CPI National, which is considered to be the standard CPI-based inflation rate for the country.
The PBS has changed the base year for price statistics from 2007-08 to 2015-16 and the body's governing council has directed that the CPI for new base year (2015-16) will be published along with CPI for old base year 2007-08 for some time, Dr Bahrawar said.
The CPI on new base (2015-16) comprises urban CPI and rural CPI. The urban CPI covers 35 cities and 356 consumer items whereas the rural CPI covers 27 rural centers and 244 consumer items. In the new base year (2015-16), National CPI for 12 major groups is also computed by taking weighted average of urban CPI and rural CPI.
The CPI National with base year (2015-16) for the month of August 2019 registered an increase of 1.64 percent over July 2019 from 123.86 points to 125.89 points. The urban CPI with base year (2015-16) recorded an increase of 1.46 percent while rural CPI with base year (2015-16) recorded an increase of 1.91%. The CPI with old base year (2007-08) recorded an increase of 1.38 from 252.46 points to 255.94 points.
The average inflation rate during first two months of current fiscal year (Jul-Aug) 2019-20 also grew by 9.44 percent compared to the same period of last year.
"In the old system of price monitoring, we used to give equal weight to all areas, including that of rural and urban areas, whereas in the new base year (2015-16), a number of new methodologies have been introduced such as introduction of General Sales Tax, other taxes and fuel price adjustment to compute electricity tariff to be used for the computation of indices," he added.
Dr Bahrawar said now monitoring of price checking has been made strict by utilizing the modern technology and PBS will keep the recordings of the data with visual evidence in data bank.
"Androids are now used for collection of data from each shop across the country which ensures that the price checking teams have visited personally to collect the data," he added.
According to sector-wise inflation, the prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages went up by 12.62 during August compared to the same month of last year out of which perishable food items witnessed increase of 15.10% and non-perishable food items recorded an increase of 12.16 percent.
Similarly, prices of alcoholic beverages and tobacco rose by 29.7 percent, clothing and foot wear by 8.9 percent, housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels, 7.07 percent, furnishing and household equipment maintenance, 11.55 percent, health, 11.93 percent, transport, 18.5 percent, communication, 4.3 percent, recreation and culture, 7.66 percent, education, 7 percent, restaurants and hotels, 6.15 percent, and miscellaneous goods and services, 13.18 percent.
Following few commodities' prices went up on YOY basis in urban regions: gas charges, 114.64 percent, chicken, 75.27 percent, onion, 61.11 percent, pulse moong, 46.32 percent, cigarettes, 37.96 percent, sugar, 33.8 percent, pulse Mash, 29.52 percent, potato, 27.34 percent, motor vehicle accessories, 23.66 percent, motor fuel, 23.43 percent, motor vehicles, 20.72 percent, cooking oil, 19.79 percent, construction input items, 18.18 percent, drugs and medicines, 17.2 percent, vegetable ghee, 17.13 percent, doctor
MBBS clinic fee, 14.98 percent, pulse Masoor, 13.53 percent, meat, 12.05 percent, pulse gram, 11.42 percent, and powdered milk, 10.91 percent.
While prices of following items witnessed a reduction over the period under review in urban areas; tomatoes, 28.81 percent, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), 15.19 percent, and electricity charges. 0.79 percent.
According to PBS data, in rural market prices of following commodities registered an increase during the period of August 2018 to August 2019; onions, 62.51 percent, chicken, 56.48 percent, pulse Moong, 50.97 percent, sugar, 37.34 percent, cigarettes,
32.37 percent, pulse Mash, 31.39 percent, potato, 28.08 percent, motor fuels, 23.18 percent, cooking oil, 21.01 percent, motor vehicles accessories, 19.53 percent, motor vehicles, 17.86 percent, doctor clinic fee, 17.12 percent, and vegetable ghee, 15.8 percent.
Prices of following items went down: tomato, 24.56 percent, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), 2.36 percent, egg, 1.64 percent, gram whole, 1.51 percent, and electricity charges, 0.79 percent.
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