Weekly Inflation Falls Below 40% for First Time in Twelve Weeks

The Sensitive Price Index (SPI) for the week ended on February 1, 2024, increased by 39.45 percent on a year-on-year basis according to data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Friday. This is the first time in twelve weeks that the YoY increase in weekly inflation has fallen below the 40 percent mark. The YoY trend depicts an increase mainly due to increase gas charges for Q1 (1108.59 percent), tomatoes (90.40 percent), chilies powder (81.74 percent), wheat flour (61.97 percent), sugar (54.79 percent), gur (51.67 percent), salt powdered (40.97 percent) rice irri-6/9 (38.79 percent) and pulse mash (37.38 percent). The SPI for the current week decreased by 0.28 percent over the previous week. The major decrease was observed in the prices of tomatoes (18.28 percent), eggs (7.77 percent), onions (6.99 percent), LPG (1.53 percent), potatoes (1.25 percent), pulse masoor (0.80 percent), cooking oil 5 litre (0.36 percent) and mustard oil (0.28 percent). During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 12 (23.53 percent) items increased, 17 (33.33 percent) items decreased and 22 (43.14 percent) items remained stable.