The Consumer Price Index (CPI) as calculated by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) for May 2026 was 11.7 percent, 0.8 percent higher than the April 2026 rate of 10.9 percent, and 0.6 percent higher than June – a May rise economists’ would unhesitatingly attribute to the Middle East crisis that generated severe supply disruptions of oil, jet fuel, fertilisers and minerals including helium used in the manufacture of computer chips.

Pakistan’s data credibility in general and inflation in particular was challenged in 2024 when the International Monetary Fund (IMF), at the time of approval of the ongoing Extended Fund Facility programme, highlighted “important shortcomings (in) the source data available for sectors accounting for around a third of Gross Domestic Product, while there are issues with the granularity and reliability of the Government Finance Statistics (GFS)….the government will prioritize and address these weaknesses supported by technical assistance (TA) from the Fund on GFS and a new Producer Price Index (PPI).”

The PPI is a critical measure defined as computing the average change over time in the selling price of goods and services that are produced domestically – and the price used is determined at factory-gate and excludes transport charges and taxes. The Fund suggested further revisions in the proposed PPI methodology by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) to make it more credible and authentic, which led to the extension of the scheduled end of the TA from end........

© Business Recorder