The country’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) based inflation rate for the month of April 2013 rose to 1.09 percent over the previous month (March 2013).
On a year-on-year (YoY) basis, the inflation during April 2013 increased by 5.8 percent as compared to the same month of last year, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) Director General Arif Mehmood Cheema told media personnel during a press conference on Thursday.
The average inflation rate during the first 10 months (July-April 2012-13) witnessed increase of 7.75 percent when compared to the same period of last year. The Wholesale Price Index (WPI) and Sensitive Price Index (SPI) in April 2013 increased by 0.77 percent and 0.29 percent in comparison to March 2013. According to the data compiled by PBS, on month-on-month (MoM) basis, food items that witnessed increase in prices during April 2013 over March 2013 included onions (40.12%), fresh vegetables (20.97%), fresh fruits (12.46%), chicken (4.76%), tea (2.53%), fish (1.73%), sugar (1.7%), pulse masoor (1.37%), beverages (1.29%), milk powder (0.93%), meat (0.85%) and gur (0.72%).
Food items that witnessed a decrease in prices during April 2013 over March 2013 included tomatoes (27.11%), eggs (13.69%), pulse gram (6.91%), potatoes (6.26%), wheat (5.50%), gram whole (5.08%), gram flour (5.04%), wheat flour (2.91%), pulse mash (2.35%), spices (2.31%), mustard oil (1.69%), pulse moong (1.52%) and wheat products (1.29%).
The non-food items that witnessed increase during the month included text books (6.89%), cotton cloth (4.38%), education (2.52%), dopatta (1.94%), hosiery (1.68%), house rent (1.48%), household equipments (1.25%), utensils (1.23%), construction wages rates (1.17%), woolen cloth (1.14%), doctor MBBS clinic fee (1.06%), construction input items (0.94%) and stationery (0.89%). The non-food items that witnessed decrease included transport services (1.2%), kerosene oil (1.18%), motor fuel (0.76%), personal equipment (0.53%) and woolen readymade garments (0.06%). During the month of April 2013 the trimmed core inflation has been observed as 7.6 percent while it was 11 percent during April 2012 over April 2011. On the other hand, the non-food and non-energy core inflation has been observed as 8.7 percent, while it was 10.8 percent during April 2012 over April 2011.
