Word: pricing
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...have that kind of growth but do not generate the power to go with it then the system will collapse." Load-shedding - as much as 18 hours a day in some areas - has brought production lines in key employment sectors such as textile-manufacturing to a standstill. Rising oil prices had been mitigated by government subsidies during much of Musharraf's tenure, but such subsidies can no longer be sustained. The cost of fuel - used for both transportation and energy production - jumped 17.7% in March, echoed by a 20.6% leap in food-price inflation. The price of bread has nearly...
...difficulties. "How many of Pakistan's problems have been created solely during the last 100 days [that the coalition government has been in power] and how much is the cumulative effect of constitutional deviations and patchwork policies over several years?" says Farahnaz Ispahani, a PPP parliamentarian and spokesperson. "Food-price inflation and high oil prices are now a global phenomenon. Bringing prices down may be beyond the capacity of any Pakistani government." But Gilani's administration cannot just wring its hands. It could start by encouraging foreign investment and privatization - moves that have been anathema to his socialist-leaning...
...This combination of slowing growth and soaring inflation turns economic policymaking into a tricky tightrope act - one with potentially ugly consequences for Asian governments that get the balance wrong. In the past 40 years, rapid price rises contributed to the collapse of two Indonesian regimes; inflation was also a factor during China's Tiananmen Square uprising in 1989. Consumer price inflation stirs up the middle classes because it can quickly erase years of hard-won personal gains. And inflation can be particularly cruel to the poor, because families are forced to spend a larger share of their meager incomes...
...Jean-Claude Trichet, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB), announced a 0.25 percentage point increase in Europe's key lending rate on July 3, he contended that it was critical to stave off the so-called secondary effects of inflation and "to neutralize the growing risks to price stability." In plain English, that means he's worried about an inflationary spiral in which manufacturers of industrial and consumer goods raise prices to compensate for higher costs - and workers demand hefty pay increases so they can afford the rising cost of their household purchases. The risk is very real...
Trichet's critics, including French President Nicolas Sarkozy, say it makes no sense for the ECB to raise interest rates to fight frothy commodity-market prices, and Trichet himself signaled that the bank isn't planning any more rate hikes in the near future. But surging inflation poses a huge threat to Europe's chances of beating the downturn, especially when combined with weak growth. Inflation is perhaps the trickiest economic indicator to forecast: for example, over the past year, the ECB's staff has based each of its inflation projections on an assumption that oil prices will stabilize...