Data deficiency

Quality of numbers could affect economic policy response

The economic data released by the government last week showed the kind of difficulties both policymakers and investors would face in the near to medium term. For the second month in a row, the National Statistical Office (NSO) did not release the headline consumer price inflation number because of difficulties in data collection. The limited data showed that food inflation stood at 9.28 per cent in May. In the case of the index of industrial production (IIP), the NSO released only the index numbers for April, which showed that output contracted by a record 55.5 per cent. The statistics department,