Inflation continues unabated: Bureau of Statistics

[LahoreEstate]

Meat prices have continued to register increases over the past week.

ISLAMABAD: The increase in the prices of kitchen items like onion, bananas, chicken, beef, mutton, sugar, wheat flour, rice, red chillies and egg has pushed up weekly food inflation to 24.49 percent.

Data released by the Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) showed that the weekly Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) for the week ending on February 26 has increased by 0.6 per cent. Whereas when compared to the same period last year the SPI based inflation still as much high as 24 per cent.

The FBS statistics based on prices of 53 essential items, collected from 17 urban centers show that during last week the prices of 13 items registered slight decrease, prices of 11 items observed increase and prices of 29 household items remained unchanged.

The items which registered increase in price were onion, bananas, chicken, beef, mutton, sugar, wheat flour, rice, red chilies and egg. Prices of LPG, tomatoes, potatoes, garlic, mustered oil, vegetable gee, pulse masoor and pulse mash registered a slight decline.

SPI inflation was recorded at 23.56 per cent for the low income families belonging to the Rs3000 income group during the week, followed by 24.33 per cent for families falling in the Rs3001 to Rs5000 income group, and 25.52 per cent for Rs5001 to Rs12000 income group. Inflation during the week under review was recorded at 24.31 per cent
for families earning above Rs12000 monthly income.

The persistence of inflationary pressures makes a rate cut more difficult when the SBP sits down to decide the course of its monetary policy.