Short-Term Inflation Remains Above 23% Due to Higher Food, Electricity Prices

The short-term inflation remained above 23 percent year-on-year in the week ending July 11 amid an increase in food and electricity prices. According to Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), the Sensitive Price Index (SPI)-based inflation for the current week ended on July 11, 2024 increased by 0.11 percent over the previous week. During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 23 (45.10 percent) items increased, 06 (11.76 percent) items decreased and 22 (43.14 percent) items remained stable. Major increase was observed in the prices of chicken (16.34 percent), powdered milk (6.07 percent), pulse gram (3.47 percent), lawn cloth (2.43 percent), long cloth (1.58 percent), milk fresh (1.37 percent), pulse masoor (1.23 percent) and pulse moong (1.02 percent). On the other hand, decrease was observed in the prices of tomatoes (19.47 percent), bananas (2.30 percent), wheat flour (1.85 percent), onions (1.55 percent), potatoes (0.86 percent) and eggs (0.61 percent). The year on year trend depicted an increase of 23.33 percent, mainly due to increase in gas charges for Q1 (570 percent), tomatoes (124.55 percent), onions (86.17 percent), chilies powder (55.00 percent), pulse gram (37.67 percent), garlic (36.20 percent), powered milk (33.33 percent), pulse moong (28.59 percent), shirting (27.08 percent), salt powder (26.79 percent), LPG (23.93 percent), beef (22.59 percent), pulse mash (22.46 percent) and electricity charges for Q1 (21.46 percent), While a decrease was observed in the prices of wheat flour (32.44 percent), chicken (16.40 percent), cooking oil 5 litre (14.74 percent), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (11.60 percent), vegetable ghee 1 kg (11.18 percent), mustard oil (8.34 percent), rice basmati broken (1.99 percent) and eggs (1.16 percent).