According to figures released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), the yearly inflation rate in July 2018 stood at 5.83 percent compared to 5.21 percent in June 2018 and 2.91 percent in July 2017.
Month on month change in CPI for July 2018, over June 2018 was 0.94%. Wholesale Price Index (WPI) increased by 2.41% in July while the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) increased by 1.17%.
Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverage witnessed a yearly increase of 3.52%, while month-on-month increase stood at 0.63%. Non-perishable food items saw a yearly increase of 3.85%, and a month-on-month increase of 0.34%. Perishable food items, on the other hand, saw a yearly increase of 1.7%, with a month-on-month increase of 2.3%, the second largest monthly increase after Communications, which saw a monthly increase of 4.15% and a yearly increase of 15.72%, the largest in the index.
Market Expectation of Yearly Inflation with respect to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for July was between 6.00 % and 5.40% with an average estimate of 5.65%.
Most analysts had cited an increase in house rent and price of petroleum products as the reasons for the increase in CPI.
Top few items that increased from the previous month i.e. June 2017 include Tomatoes (15.63%), Air fare (11.97%), Bus Fare (11.82), Potatoes (9.4%), CNG (7.89%), Diesel (7.25%), Onion (6.5%), Ginger (6.43%), Petrol (3.57%), Sugar (3.24%), Wheat Flour Bag (2.4%) and House Rent (2%).
Similarly, the top few items that increased from the previous year i.e. July 2017 include Bus Fare (48.19%), Diesel (41.35%), Tomatoes (38.39%), Kerosene Oil (36.92%), Petrol (33.58%), Iron Bar (25.94%), Cylinder (25.65%), Newspapers (17.65%), Gold Tezabi (15.86%), and Honda Civic Car (15.07%).
