Weekly Inflation Hits Almost 45% as Gas, Food Prices Soar

The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) for the current week ended on January 11, 2024, increased by 44.64 percent on a year-on-year (YoY) basis, according to data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Friday. This is the tenth straight week that the weekly inflation reading has come over 40 percent. This week’s YoY reading is the highest since May 25, 2023, eclipsing last week’s reading of 44.16 percent. The YoY trends depict an increase mainly due to an increase in gas charges for Q1 (1108.59 percent), tomatoes (183.16 percent), wheat flour (65.03 percent), and sugar (57.26 percent). The SPI for the current week increased by 0.34 percent over the previous week. Major increase was observed in the prices of onions (8.69 percent), tomatoes (7.51 percent), chicken (2.26 percent), garlic (2.18 percent), bananas (2.14 percent), eggs (1.89 percent), pulse mash (1.59 percent) and pulse moong (1.46 percent). During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 22 (43.14 percent) items increased, 08 (15.68 percent) items decreased and 21 (41.18 percent) items remained stable.