ISLAMABAD: The country’s inflation slightly decelerated to 8.8 per cent in April from a month ago, owing to a slight decline in prices of essential kitchen items, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics reported on Thursday.

In March, the consumer price index had surged to 9.4pc — highest level in five years — on account of rupee depreciation and rise in energy prices. The slight decline in prices of select consumer items helped slow down the CPI in April.

The International Monetary Fund as well as independent economists have already predicted that by end of June, annual inflation will cross double digits. During July-April, average price levels have increase by 7pc on a yearly basis.

While the government had projected 6pc annual inflation for 2018-19, CPI had already breached that mark in February. In contrast, the average inflation during FY18 stood at 3.92pc and 4.16pc the year before.

CPI for a basket of 487 items collected from 40 cities and 76 markets.

The most dominating push to inflation came from core inflation, measured by excluding volatile food and energy prices, at 7pc year-on-year. It has been steadily rising for a couple of months despite tightening monetary policy.

In April, food inflation increased by 8.6pc on year-on-year and 1.7pc on month-on-month. Perishable product prices jumped 7.55pc while that of non-perishable products edged up by 0.78pc on a monthly basis.

The food items whose prices increased the most in April included fresh fruits, higher by 24.2pc, fresh vegetables 10.93pc, chicken 9.9pc, sugar 6.76pc, potatoes 6.08pc, onions 4.87pc, Gur 2.97pc, pulse moong 2.67pc, cooking oil 1.83pc, vegetable ghee 1.32pc, meat 1.15pc.

On the other hand, food items which witnessed decrease in price included tomatoes, plunging by 41.42pc, eggs 19.88pc, wheat 1.97pc, gram whole 1.2pc, pulse gram 0.9pc, wheat product 0.8pc, wheat flour 0.77pc, beans 0.54pc, dry fruits 0.53pc, besan 0.45pc and daal mash washed 0.37pc.

Meanwhile, non-food inflation rose 9pc in April on yearly and 1pc on monthly basis, led by motor fuel 4.22pc, kerosene oil 2.38pc, education 1.8pc, cotton cloth 1.71pc, personal equipment 1.55pc, text books 1.55pc, house rent 1.30pc, and household servant 0.82pc.

The wholesale price index during July-April FY19 reached to the highest level of 11.69pc. as compared to 2.83pc over the corresponding period of last year.

Published in Dawn, May 3rd, 2019