Weekly Inflation Hovers Near 30% Due to Higher Gas, Food Prices

The Sensitive Price Index (SPI)-based inflation for the current week ended 9 November 2023 increased by 0.73 percent due to increase in the prices of food items, says the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS). The year on year trend depicts increase of 29.86 percent mainly due to increase in the prices of gas charges for Q1 (108.38 percent), cigarettes (94.46 percent), chilies powder (84.11 percent), wheat flour (81.23 percent), rice basmati broken (77.93 percent), rice irri-6/9 (60.65 percent), garlic (58.23 percent), and sugar (57.57 percent), while decrease was observed in the prices of onions (32.27 percent), tomatoes (9.08 percent), mustard oil (3.88 percent), pulse gram (2.80 percent), and vegetable ghee 1 kg (1.69 percent). During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 20 (39.22 percent) items increased, 8 (15.69 percent) items decreased and 23 (45.09 percent) items remained stable. Some of the items prices of which increased during the period review include tomatoes (15.43 percent), potatoes (4.47 percent), wheat flour bag 20 kg (2.36 percent), garlic (2.16 percent), salt powdered (1.82 percent), and chicken (1.60 percent). The items prices of which decreased during the period under review include gur (2.43 percent), rice irri-6/9 (0.34 percent), rice basmati broken (0.13 percent), pulse mash (0.12 percent) and pulse moong (0.05 percent).