Unemployment, inflation reduced due to good policies: Ahsan Iqbal

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal said the unemployment rate and inflation have been reduced due to policy measures introduced by the federal government, ARY News reported.

In a statement issued here, Ahsan Iqbal said the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government is working on removing shortcomings of the power sector. He said that the federal minister said that the government will bring down power tariff in the coming two years.

The planning minister also expressed satisfaction over the performance of the stock market. Ahsan Iqbal said the Punjab government has started providing relief to people of province in electricity bills through a Rs 46 billion rupees package.

To a question, Ahsan Iqbal said that Pakistan needs peace and continuity of policies for progress.

Earlier, it was reported that the weekly inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), witnessed further decrease of 0.62 percent for the combined consumption groups during the week ended on August 29.

According to the PBS data, the SPI for the week under review in the above-mentioned group was recorded at 319.73 points as compared to 321.72 points during the past week.

As compared to the corresponding week of last year, the SPI for the combined consumption group in the week under review witnessed an increase of 15.34 per cent.

The weekly SPI with the base year 2015-16 =100 covers 17 urban centres and 51 essential items for all expenditure groups.

Likewise, SPI for the lowest consumption group of up to Rs 17,732, however witnessed an increase of 0.24 per cent and went up to 310.80 points from last week’s 310.29 points.

The SPI for consumption group of Rs 17,732 to 22,888 also witnessed an increase of 0.11 percent. However the SPI for the consumption groups of Rs 22,889-29,517; Rs 29,518-44,175 and above Rs 44,175 decreased by 0.64 percent, 0.86 and 0.58 percent respectively.

During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 17 (33.33%) items increased, 10 (19.61%) items decreased and 24 (47.06%) items remained stable.