ISLAMABAD: The first meeting of the National Price Monitoring Committee (NPMC) was held on Tuesday. After the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM)-led government assumed power, the National Price Monitoring Committee (NPMC) was shifted from the Ministry of Finance to Ministry of Planning. The maiden meeting was chaired by Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal.
According to an official announcement made, the National Price Monitoring Committee (NPMC) reviewed the prices of essential commodities and directed the relevant stakeholders to maintain a close watch on prices of food items and proceed against those who indulged in hoarding.
The meeting was also attended by the Chief Economist, Chief Statistics Pakistan Bureau of Statistics and other relevant stakeholders. The minister observed that rising inflation needed to be checked to ease the burden on the common people. In this regard, it was decided that NPMC meeting shall be held on a weekly basis in order to monitor prices. “Immediate measures need to be taken to control the prices of essential commodities and this is our top priority to provide maximum relief to the common man,” remarked Ahsan Iqbal, while chairing the first meeting of NPMC.
The meeting has informed that major drivers of inflation were global price hike and increase in POL and utilities tariffs due to IMF conditions. Similarly, devaluation of the Pakistani rupee also contributed to inflation. However, hoarding also contributes which require administrative measures by local administration.
The minister also directed the PBS to share its data analysis report in every meeting and closely monitor the price index and ensure the projection so a better policy could be made to overcome future crises. He also directed the PBS to adopt the practice of regularly comparing the difference in wholesale and retail prices of essential food items in different districts across the country in collaboration with the provinces and in this regard the Ministry of Food and Industries will be engaged.
Pakistan stands at the second highest position by touching 24.9 percent on account of CPI-based inflation in July 2022 among South Asian regional countries after Sri Lanka where inflation touched the 60.8 percent mark. Inflation in India stands at 6.7 percent at the moment while it is hovering around 8.08 percent in Nepal. The monster of inflation in the Maldives stands at 5.2 percent in June 2022. The annual inflation rate in Bangladesh climbed to 7.56 percent in June of 2022 from 7.42 percent in the previous month. It was the highest inflation rate since July of 2013, underpinned by soaring prices of both food items (8.37 percent vs 8.30 percent in May) and non-food items (6.33 percent vs 6.08 percent).
On a monthly basis, consumer prices went up 1.45 percent, the highest since September last year after declining 0.99 percent in May. The inflation rate in Bhutan increased to 5.95 percent in May from 5.79 percent in April of 2022.
There are some other countries where the inflation was higher than Pakistan as in Iran the inflation stood at 54 percent and in Turkey 79.6 percent. In Pakistan, the government claimed that the international prices of POL and commodities pushed up the prices in the domestic market. But more in-depth analysis is required due to which some other factors also contributed a lot to fuel inflation. The lack of productivity and ineffective role of ministries, departments, provincial governments as well as Competition Commission of Pakistan and others also hiked the prices in the domestic market.
