ISLAMABAD: A meeting of the National Price Monitoring Committee (NPMC) directed the Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) on Friday to share its findings in poultry sector with the provincial governments, and the Islamabad Capital Territory Administration to streamline the recent spike in the prices of poultry sector, and play a proactive role to control the spike in prices.
The meeting of the committee chaired by Finance Secretary Naveed Kamran Baloch informed participants that the recent cabinet meeting has taken notice of the price hike in the poultry sector, and discussed the matter in details with all stakeholders and examined the demand and supply dynamics of poultry products.
After discussion, he directed provincial governments and the ICT Administration to take actions where undue price hike was being made, and comprehensive measures should be adopted for smooth supply of poultry products.
The provincial representative and the ICT Administration ensured that all possible measures would be taken to improve the situation, and to bring down the prices in the coming days.
The secretary finance being the chairman of the NPMC also directed the Ministry of National Food Security to make necessary coordination and consultation with the provincial governments in a more vigilant way on the prices of wheat and wheat flour, and take immediate measures to ensure smooth supply.
He stated that all relevant authorities along with the provincial governments should monitor the provision of essential food items at affordable prices, and remove the price disparity, and keep an eye on undue profit margin as in some cases higher profit margin was also observed.
The provincial governments and the ICT Administration ensured that they will take strict measures to minimise undue profit margin.
The meeting was attended by representatives from the provincial governments, Islamabad Capital Territory, Ministries of Industries, Interior, Planning, Development and Special Initiatives, National Food Security and Research, the Federal Board of Revenue, the CCP, and the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, discussed the price trend of essential food items.
The meeting was informed that the CPI inflation year-on-year is recorded at 8.2 percent in May 2020 over May 2019, and July-May CPI inflation on average reached to 10.9 percent.
It was noted that inflation is on continuously declining trend since January 2020, due to policy, administrative and relief measures of the federal and the provincial governments.
It was also observed that price trend in international market is on a declining trend, which will augur well for the domestic prices in the near future.
The government is proactively taking measures to control the general price level of daily use items at the federal, provincial and district levels.
It has been noticed that the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), which monitors the price movement of 51 essential items on a weekly basis, recorded an increase of 0.05 percent for the week ended on 11th June, 2020.
During the week, 10 items recorded decline in their prices, while 22 items remained stable. The last week that ended on 4th June 2020 recorded a decline of 0.42 percent.
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