ISLAMABAD: Inflation accelerated to 11.3 per cent in April, from a year ago, data showed on Wednesday, piling up pressure on the coalition government to take aggressive budgetary measures to check the rising trend in 2012-13.
Experts say continued higher inflation could push millions of people into extreme poverty.
The closely-watched Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased by 1.83 per cent in April as compared to the previous month of March, driven by higher food costs and increased fuel prices as global oil cost boosted the country’s import bill, suggested data of the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).
The rising energy prices dampened economic growth, dimming hopes of an early interest rate cut to offset slowing economic growth.
The surprise turnaround in prices put the government end-year projection of nine per cent at risk.
The central bank had kept the interest rate unchanged at 12pc since November 30, 2011.
The core inflation, excluding food and energy, rose to 10.8pc in April from 10.6pc in March. No link was established so far for raising the interest rates that had curtailed the rising core inflation.
For the first 10 months, inflation reached 10.84 pc, slightly over the government annual target of 9.5pc. However, PBS official said that the government has revised its annual inflation target to 12pc.
At the same time, a weaker rupee will fan inflation. The State Bank seems reluctant to intervene in the market to check fall of the rupee. This increased the prices of all those commodities which were imported to plug the shortages in the domestic market.But contrary to this, food inflation also entered a double digit growth of 10.7pc in April, from a year ago. As a result, prices of non-perishable food items witnessed a surge of 10.04pc and that of perishable items 14.63pc.
The price of food items which increased included tomatoes (62.31pc), pulse gram (35.54pc), gram whole (32.55pc), Besan (30.78pc), condiments (25.56pc), chicken (22.58pc), milk powder (18.69pc), milk products (18.18pc), spices (17.99pc) and onion (17.96pc).
And non-food items that increased: motor vehicle tax (52.02pc), household servant (32.68pc), firewood whole (29.49pc), gas (29.41pc), motor fuel (28.87pc), woollen cloth (23.63pc), dopatta (22.07pc), mechanical service (21.24pc), motor vehicle accessories (20.75pc) and washing soaps and detergents (20.13pc).
Aside from this, clothing and footwear surged by 15.45pc, furnishing and household equipment 20.32pc, health 11.49pc and transport 19.40pc in April this year from a year ago.
