ISLAMABAD, Jan 25: The National Price Monitoring Committee has taken notice of high prices of urea and DAP in Pakistan, and asked the ministry of industries to investigate and take steps to lower its prices.

The committee observed that the prices of urea and DAP are higher in Pakistan as compared to India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan whereas international prices have declined by 5.5 and 11.6 per cent respectively since July 2011.

The meeting held here on late on Tuesday and chaired by Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh reviewed the prices and supply trend of essential food items in general and supply cycle of potato, onion and tomato in particular as well as prices in the neighboring countries and the trend of international prices.

The committee noted that Sensitive Price Indicator which monitors prices of 53 items declined by 0.22 per cent during the week ended on January 19.The committee advised the Federal Bureau of Statistics to compile the price data pertaining to weekly Friday and Sunday bazaars for submission to the National Price Monitoring Committee meeting in future.

This practice may help understand reality of price situation to gauge its direct impact on common man.

At the same time, the committee advised the Federal Board of Revenue to inform the meeting about import of essential items with time series data for their effective monitoring in every NMPC.

The committee also reviewed the price trend of 28 selected items in the provinces and noted that prices of tomato, potato, mutton, wheat, wheat flour are manageable and more or less the same in provinces.

However, some variation has been observed in the prices due to reported reference period.

The committee showed concern on the increase in the prices of eggs by 1.8 per cent and also took note that theprices of gram pulse, sugar, beef are lower in the Pakistan as compared to neighbouring countries, like India, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka while prices of wheat and wheat flour are at par with India whereas Pakistan is at second position in terms of the prices of rice, moong, mutton, chicken farm, garlic, tomato as compared in the region.

Prices of masoor pulse, mash, ghee, onion and tea are higher in Pakistan.

The committee agreed to include garlic and other kitchen items including pulses and livestock in the monitoring list to keep a watch on prices.

The committee noted that there would be no availability of tomato in July as per supply cycle, therefore it stated that timely import of tomatoes would be required to offset any price hike due to supply shortage.

It was also noted that the prices of tomato are stable even less than last year despite damages to tomato crops in Sindh by rains.