The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), on Friday, said that headline annual inflation exhibited a slight decline of 0.2 percent in the last month. According to the central bank, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) headline inflation was recorded at 13 percent during April in contrast with 13.2 percent in the preceding month.
This decrease in the CPI, the SBP said, was “on the back of a decline in CPI group inflation”.
However, the rise in administrative prices of POL products has raised transportation fares and charges, tution fees, House Rent Index (HRI), non-food inflation (YoY) by 0.4 percentage points during April as compared to March, the State Bank said. The annual core inflation measured by 20 percent trimmed mean decreased by 0.3 percentage points and Non-Food Non-Energy (NFNE), another core inflation measure, decelerated by 0.1 percentage points during the current month compared to last month.
A marginal decrease of 0.2 percentage points was also recorded by the State Bank in the annual Sensitive Price Index (SPI) inflation during April. The SP stood at 16.1 percent during April against 16.3 percent in the last month. The bank said that the annual Wholesale Price Index (WPI) inflation continued sustained a rising trend and reached 25.9 percent during April against 25.5 percent in the previous month. This shows a 0.5 percent jump over last month. “This can be attributed to higher annual inflation in ‘lighting and lubricants’ and ‘manufactures’ sub-groups,” it observed.
