CPI Preview: March inflation expected to hit a 5-year high

March 29, 2019 (MLN): The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) is all set to release the numbers for Consumer Price Index (CPI) in the first week of April 2019.

In anticipation of these results, various brokerage houses have put forward their expectations of these numbers, based on the past performance as well as current economic factors. The expected numbers of these research houses are therefore listed below:

Keeping in view the above expectations, it is fair to say that the headline inflation (CPI) will most likely land within a range of 8.6-9.12% YoY in Mar-19, close to a 5-year high, as compared to 8.21% YoY in Feb-19 and 3.24% YoY in Mar-18.

Sequentially, CPI is expected to increase by around 0.7-1.15% MoM as compared to 0.64% in Feb-19. This will push average period inflation for 9MFY19 close to 6.0% compared to 4.0% last year.

According to these research houses, the surge in inflation will be caused by an increase in petroleum, food and cloth indexes. Moreover, unfavorable movements in exchange rates will also result in higher prices of imported products and upwards adjustment in tariff of utilities.

Going forward, inflation rate is expected to rise in upcoming months of FY19 due to the low base effect of last year, increase in prices of perishable goods, impact of exchange rate movements and increase in international oil prices.

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