Weekly Inflation Crosses 30% as Food Prices Rise

Weekly inflation continued its upward trend due to an increase in food and gas prices, crossing the 30 percent barrier on a year-on-year (YoY) basis for the week ended on August 10, 2023, showed data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PSB) on Friday. The year-on-year trend depicts an increase of 30.82 percent mainly due to an increase in the prices of wheat flour (131.81 percent), cigarettes (109.57 percent), gas charges for Q1 (108.38 percent), tea Lipton (95.19 percent), rice basmati broken (84.09 percent), chilies powder (72.94 percent), rice irri-6/9 (72.74 percent), sugar (67.90 percent), chicken (65.87 percent), gur (58.93 percent), potatoes (57.02 percent) and tomatoes (53.66 percent), while a decrease was observed in the prices onions (28.77 percent), electricity for Q1 (16.63 percent), pulse masoor (16.04 percent) and vegetable ghee 1 kg (1.93 percent). The SPI for the week under review recorded an increase of 0.69 percent over the previous week. A major increase during the week was observed in the prices of food items, chillies powder (3.72 percent), powdered milk (3.65 percent), pulse mash (3.13 percent), garlic (2.39 percent), sugar (2.30 percent), chicken (2.27 percent), salt (1.84 percent), eggs (1.74 percent) and non-food item, electricity for Q1 (1.75 percent). On the other hand, decrease was observed in the prices of vegetable ghee 1 kg (1.59 percent), LPG (0.79 percent), cooking oil (0.78 percent), mustard oil (0.48 percent), and vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (0.10 percent). During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 29 (56.87 percent) items increased, 05 (9.80 percent) items decreased and 17 (33.33 percent) items remained stable.