Monthly inflation eases to 8.8pc in April

ISLAMABAD: The Consumer Price Index (CPI) based inflation increased by 8.8% in April 2019 as compared to an increase of 9.4% in the previous month and 3.7%, a year ago.

On month-on-month basis, the CPI increased by 0.1.3% in April 2019 over previous month, a press statement issued by Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) said on Thursday.

In April, the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) increased by 0.13.8%, and Sensitive Price Index (SPI) increased by 9.3% over same month a year ago.

Pakistan Bureau of Statistics collects the retail prices and computes the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for a basket of 487 items collected from 40 cities and 76 markets. For each item four quotations are collected from each market on monthly basis.

Wholesale Price Index (WPI), on monthly basis, is compiled from 21 markets and 21 cities for a basket of 463 items. Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) is compiled on weekly basis for 53 items from 53 markets of 17 cities.

Core inflation measured by non-food non-energy CPI (Core NFNE) increased by 7% in April 2019 as compared to an increase of 8.5% in the previous month and 7.0% in April 2018.

The core inflation, measured by 20% weighted trimmed mean CPI (Core Trimmed) increased by 7.2% on Year-on-Year basis in April 2019 as compared to 7.9% in the previous month and by 5.0% in April 2018. On (MoM) basis, it increased by 0.9% in April 2019 as compared to an increase of 0.4% in the previous month and an increase of 1.6% in corresponding month of last year.

Top few commodities which increased in their prices in April as compared to the previous month include fresh fruits (24.21%), fresh vegetables (10.93%), chicken (9.90%), sugar (6.76%), potatoes (6.08%), onions (4.87%), gur (2.97%), pulse moong (2.67%), cooking oil (1.83%), vegetable ghee (1.32%), meet (1.15%), motor fuel (4.22%), kerosene oil (2.38%), education (1.80%), cotton cloth (1.71%), personal equipment (1.55%), text books (1.55), house rent (1.30%) and household servant (0.82%).

The commodities which decreased in their prices in the corresponding period include tomatoes (41.42%), eggs (19.88%), wheat (1.97%), gram whole (1.20%), pulse gram (0.90%), wheat product (0.80%), wheat flour (0.77%), beans (0.54%), dry fruit (0.53%), gram flour (0.45%), pulse mash (washed) (0.37%), and transport services (0.27%).