EDITORIAL: Sensitive Price Index (SPI) comprising 51 essential items from 50 markets in 17 cities for the week ending 23 April inexplicably showed a decline of 0.33 percent from the previous week – 12.28 percent in the week ending 23 April, 12.47 percent in the week ending 16 April, 141.6 percent in the week ending 9 April and 11.38 percent in the week ending 2 April – inexplicable because prices are globally on the rise due to the oil supply disruptions as a consequence of the continuing Middle East conflict.
Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) claimed that a decline was observed in the price of tomato (negative 27.65 percent), onion (negative 9.35 percent), garlic (negative 4.27 percent) – items that have to be transported from farm to market and with the price of petrol and high speed diesel on the rise since the US/Israel attack on Iran a decline in their prices can only be attributable due to bumper crops which, to-date, no report has substantiated.
PBS noted a decline in diesel (negative 8.35 percent) and LPG (negative 7.08 percent), which again is baffling, given that diesel prices spiked markedly due to supply shortages while LPG, also largely imported from the Gulf countries, witnessed a price rise due to supply constraints too though the government intervened to stabilise prices of these commodities however several retailers are making windfall profits, as in the past.
The SPI noted different prices of petrol (super) and high speed diesel in different cities and took the average to conclude that their prices have remained stable; however, it is relevant to note that the data pertains to only 17 cities, and Khuzdar is one city selected where Iran oil is smuggled routinely on which taxes are unpaid though the market price of the commodity is subjected to overcharging.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its October 2024 documents relating to the staff level agreement on the thirty-six-month long 7 billion-dollar Extended Fund Facility programme noted that “there are weaknesses in the National Accounts and the Government Finance Statistics (GFS) that somewhat hamper surveillance.
The FY16 NA rebasing and recent publication of quarterly GDP have provided a better basis for assessing economic developments, but important shortcomings remain in the source data available for sectors accounting for around a third of GDP, while there are issues with the granularity and reliability of the GFS.
The authorities are prioritizing addressing these weaknesses, supported by Fund’s Technical Assistance (TA) on the GFS and a new Producer Price Index (PPI), and the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics will soon begin fieldwork for four major surveys ahead of the upcoming NA rebasing to FY26.” The TA was scheduled to be completed by end-June this year; however, Business Recorder reported recently that the IMF expressed reservations over PBS’s new PPI that led to the deferral of the completion date till October to allow PBS to improve the authenticity of the manufacturing data methodology as per the Fund’s suggestions.
There are two major lacunas in the PBS inflation data; notably, taking the government controlled price at which an item, or its quality, is not available on the market, and smuggled items, given our large porous borders, are available at lower rates than local produced items.
The reason is mainly political though a householder with limited income would instinctively be aware of the erosion of the value of each rupee he earns though, sadly, administration after administration has remained immune to this basic fact.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2026