Food inflation in Pakistan on the decline, says Finance Division

• Govt is taking aggressive measures to control essential commodities' prices by eliminating major contributory factors to price increase, says Finance Division.
• Major indicators of inflation (CPI, SPI and WPI) witnessed a decline by 0.3pc, 2.0pc and 0.3pc respectively in Dec 2019 over Nov 2019.

The food inflation in the country witnessed a decline in the month of December, the Finance Division said on Tuesday.

In a series of tweets, Finance Division spokesperson Omar Hamid Khan shared data, saying food inflation declined by 1.7 percent Month on Month (MoM) for Urban and -1.1pc for rural consumers.

“Government is taking aggressive measures to control prices of essential commodities by eliminating major contributory factors to the price increase,” said the government official.

As per ministry of finance, the major decline in MoM inflation was witnessed in the prices of tomatoes (36.5pc), turnip (20.6pc), radish (22.4pc), onion (12.5pc), peas (18.0pc), chillies (17.6pc), carrot (16.9pc), chicken (11.2pc), spinach (11.0pc), ginger (8.6pc), lemon (3.9pc), potato (2.0pc), cucumber (2.9pc) and wheat flour (1.1pc).

The spokesperson said that the MoM inflation augur well for future inflation trajectory for the current fiscal year. Government measures to curb inflation have started to show results, we anticipate prices to come down further in 2020.

Major Indicators of inflation such as CPI, SPI and WPI witnessed a decline by 0.3pc, 2.0pc and 0.3pc respectively in December 2019 over November 2019.

However, the State Bank of Pakistan, in its report “The State of Pakistan's Economy" for first quarter (July-Sep) of FY20, said that export growth and foreign exchange reserves, documentation of economy for required revenue and higher food inflation are still major challenges to the country's economy.

“Managing food prices has lately become challenging. Supply-management issues, such as weak governance in commodity procurement agencies, hoarding practices and regional trade bottlenecks, may potentially perpetuate food inflation going forward,” said the central bank.