ISLAMABAD: Consumer Price Index (CPI) on year-on-year basis during February 2017 witnessed an increase of 4.22 percent as compared same month of last year. On month-on-month basis, the inflation was recorded at 0.28 per cent in February 2017 as compared to January 2017, said Asif Bajwa, Chief Statistician Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) while presenting data of monthly inflation figures here during a press conference.
Asif Bajwa was flanked by Secretary Statistics Division, Shujat Ali and other high officials of the bureau. According to the data, average CPI based inflation during first eight months of the current fiscal year (July-February) increased by 3.90 per cent as compared to same period of previous year.
The PBS collects the retail and the wholesale prices and computes the CPI and Wholesale Price Index (WPI) on monthly basis while the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) is calculated on weekly basis.
In February 2017, the WPI increased by 0.47 percent while SPI decreased by 0.2 percent, according to the data. The non food and non energy core inflation during February 2017 was observed at 5.3 percent compared to February 2016, during which it was recorded at 4.5 percent compared to January 2015. The trimmed core inflation has been observed at 4.1 percent in February 2017 compared to February 2016, the data revealed. On year-on-year basis, the top ten items that witnessed increase in prices on in February 2017 compared to the same month of last year included Lederplex syrup (48.66%), gram whole yellow (44.16%), tablet Entox (36.70%), peas (37.50%), Dettol Medium (34.98%), garlic (32.43%), potatoes (31.91%), cabbage (28.61%), Johar Jo Shanda (21.95%), lemon (20.87%) and Besan (20.08%).
The top ten items that witnessed decrease in prices in February 2017 compared to February 2016 included onions (29.93%), cucumber (18.27%), mash pulse (16.96%), moong pulse (14.57%), pomegranate (7.88%) and tapal danedar (7.49%). On month-on-month basis, the top items which had recorded increase in their average prices in February 2017 compared to January 2017 included tomatoes (28.98%), peas (11.42%), kinnu (9.70%), malta (8.42%), pomegranate (8.19%), toilet soap (8.14%), chicken (7.91%), guava (7.83%), cauliflower (7.35%), spinach (7.19%), onion (6.31%) and cinema non A/C (6.07%). The items that witnessed decrease in prices on month-on-month basis, included cucumber (17.47%), gram pulse (12.44%), gram whole black (9.69%) besan (9.31%), eggs farm (8.74%), carrot (6.70%), mash pulse (6.16 %), cabbage (5.59%), masoor pulse whole (4.40%) and masoor washed (4.18%).
