Tarin advocates building strategic sugar reserves

While expressing satisfaction over the stability in prices of sugar, Adviser to Prime Minister on Finance and Revenue Shaukat Tarin told the Ministry of Industries and Production to build strategic reserves of the commodity to avoid any price hike in future.

Chairing a meeting of the National Price Monitoring Committee (NPMC) on Wednesday, the PM aide underlined that the government was taking measures to ensure smooth supply of essential commodities across the country.

The adviser commended the efforts of Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) for arranging “Sasta Bazaars” to provide essential goods at discounted rates.

The committee reviewed prices of daily-use commodities and essential food items in the country.

On the occasion, finance secretary briefed meeting participants about the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) and said that it had registered an increase of 0.55% in the previous week.

Giving the reason, he said that the increase was due to the hike in electricity tariffs.

On the other hand, the SPI for food, transport and non-food items registered a decline of 0.67%, 0.27% and 0.02% respectively.

Reviewing the price trend, the secretary apprised the participants that prices of 15 essential commodities had declined, whereas rates of 19 items remained stable last week.

“Prices of 17 essential commodities have shown a slight increase,” he said, adding that prices of tomato, potato, chicken, onion, eggs, jaggery, sugar and wheat flour fell significantly last week.

Prices of onion and tomato were at the same levels as they were three years ago, the NPMC was told. The meeting was informed that the price of wheat flour remained stable at Rs1,100 per 20kg bag due to the proactive measures taken by the governments of Punjab and K-P as well as the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) administration.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 23^rd, 2021.

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