Short-Term Inflation in Pakistan Down to Lowest on Record

The Sensitive Price Index (SPI) based inflation for the week ended March 13, 2025, decreased by 1.97 percent on a year-on-year basis, according to the data issued by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS). According to brokerage house Arif Habib Limit (AHL), the year-on-year figure is the lowest since available data. The year-on-year trend depicts a decrease mainly due to a decrease in the prices of Onions (72.32 percent), Tomatoes (51.96 percent), Wheat Flour (36.20 percent), Chilies Powder (20.00 percent), Electricity Charges for Q1 (18.92 percent), Tea Lipton (15.89 percent), Pulse Mash (14.98 percent), Pulse Masoor (12.38 percent), Diesel (9.91 percent), Petrol (8.55 percent) and LPG (5.35 percent). On the other hand, the SPI based inflation increased by 0.22 percent on week-on-week basis due to an increase in the prices of Tomatoes (36.43 percent), Chicken (6.40 percent), Bananas (6.05 percent), Sugar (5.69 percent), LPG (1.44 percent), Georgette & Gur (1.32 percent) each, Bread (1.13 percent), Beef (0.57 percent), Pulse Moong (0.28 percent) and Cigarettes (0.27 percent). During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 12 (23.53 percent) items increased, 15 (29.41 percent) items decreased and 24 (47.06 percent) items remained stable.