Weekly Inflation Stays Above 40% for Third Straight Week

Annual short-term inflation remained above 40 percent for the third straight week, driven by the increase in gas prices, according to the latest data issued by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Friday. The year on year trend posted an increase of 41.05 percent, mainly due to an increase in gas charges for Q1 (1108 percent), cigarettes (94 percent), wheat flour (87 percent), chilies powder (81 percent), rice basmati broken (75 percent), garlic (73 percent), rice irri-6/9 (61 percent), while decrease was observed in the prices of tomatoes (23 percent), onions (22 percent), mustard oil (4 percent), vegetable ghee 1 kg (3 percent) and vegetable ghee 2.5kg (1 percent). The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) for the current week ended on November 30, 2023, decreased by 0.23 percent. Major decrease was observed in the prices of tomatoes (17.6 percent), potatoes (5 percent), chicken (3.6 percent), sugar (2 percent), tea lipton (1.29 percent), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (0.87 percent), wheat flour (0.39 percent), LPG (0.16 percent) and pulse moong (0.14 percent). On the other hand increase was observed in the prices of onions (18.25 percent), banana (2.84 percent), garlic (2.35 percent), pulse gram (1.09 percent), pulse masoor (0.72 percent), rice irri-6/9 (0.44 percent), eggs (0.43 percent) and mustard oil (0.40 percent). During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 13 (25.49 percent) items increased, 14 (27.45 percent) items decreased and 24 (47.06 percent) items remained stable.