Effective monitoring of prices to check hoarding and profiteering: Khusro Bakhtyar

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Planning, Development & Reform & Statistics Division Makhdum Khusro Bakhtyar has said that the Government is committed to providing relief to marginalized sections of the society through checking profiteering and hoarding and effective monitoring and implementation of price control of essential food items.

The minister was chairing a presentation by Statistics Division here at Islamabad on Monday. Secretary Statistics Division Ms. Shaista Sohail gave the presentation which was also attended by senior officials of Ministries of Planning and Statistics.

It is pertinent to mention that the Prime Minister had assigned the additional portfolio of Ministry of Statistics to Makhdum Khusro Bakhtyar on December 12, 2018. The Minister was apprised that inflation for essential kitchen items has been less than 1% since august 2018.

The minister directed the Statistics Division to collect data of essential food items on Mondays rather than Thursdays to have a clear picture of prices of key items in the beginning of the week. Noting that poor market information leads to profiteering and hoarding, the minister called for close collaboration between all the stakeholders including market committees and district administration across the country.

The minister directed that the mechanism should be devised to educate the public on economic statistics especially the trends in consumer price index (CPI) and inflation.

He underscored the need to disseminate the information to the general public through media to enable the consumers to be vigilant and informed of prices of essential kitchen items adding that he will soon have a meeting with Federal Minister for Information in this regard.

Secretary Statistics Division informed that Pakistan Bureau of statistics is following international standards while collecting data.