Ask for "a Pakistan economic data API" and you'll often be pointed at the World Bank's API. It's free, keyless and easy:
https://api.worldbank.org/v2/country/pak/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?format=json
It's a good API. It just answers a different question than most Pakistan-focused projects are asking.
What it's good at
- Cross-country comparison: the same indicator code for every country, ideal for global dashboards and development research.
- Long annual history for headline indicators such as GDP, population, trade as a share of GDP and poverty.
- No key, no signup.
What it doesn't have for Pakistan
The World Bank publishes mostly annual, harmonized headline indicators. For Pakistan-specific work you'll quickly need data it doesn't carry:
| You need | World Bank API | PakDataHub |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly USD/PKR back to 1947 | Annual averages | fx.rate.avg.usd, monthly from 1947 |
| KIBOR, the policy rate, the PKRV yield curve | - | rates.kibor.3m, rates.policy, rates.pkrv.10y, daily |
| CPI by group, urban vs rural, monthly | Annual headline inflation | inflation.cpi.urban.food and the other groups, monthly |
| Weekly flour, sugar and petrol prices in 17 cities | - | /v1/commodities/by-city |
| Monthly remittances by sending country | Annual total | remittances.workers_remittances_received_*, monthly |
| SBP reserves, monthly | Annual | reserves.total_sbp_reserves, monthly from 1948 |
| T-Bill and PIB auction cut-offs | - | /v1/fixed-income/auctions |
| Raast, cards, POS, e-commerce | - | payments.raast.total.value and the rest, quarterly |
| Mutual-fund NAVs and returns | - | /v1/funds, 567 funds |
Different sources, different jobs
- The World Bank harmonizes data across countries, with a lag, at annual frequency.
- PakDataHub serves Pakistan's own official releases (SBP, PBS, PTA, MUFAP) at their native daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly frequency, as soon as they're published.
Many projects use both: World Bank data for the international comparison, PakDataHub for everything inside Pakistan.
Getting the Pakistan detail
curl -H "X-API-Key: pk_live_xxx" \
"https://api.pakdatahub.com/v1/series/inflation.cpi.national.yoy?from=2020-01-01&sort=asc"
Browse the data dictionary for everything available, or get a free key. The free tier reaches every dataset.