Weekly Inflation Nears 30% Due to Higher Food Prices

The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI)-based inflation for the week ended August 3, 2023, increased by 1.30 percent due to increase in the prices of food items and non-food items, says the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS). The year-on-year trend depicts an increase of 29.83 percent mainly due to an increase in the prices of wheat flour (131.40 percent), cigarettes (109.57 percent), gas charges for q1 (108.38 percent), tea lipton (97.71 percent), rice basmati broken (82.86 percent), rice irri-6/9 (72.73 percent), tomatoes (67.54 percent), chilies powder (66.74 percent), sugar (64.12 percent), chicken (60.51 percent), gents sponge chappal (58.05 percent), gur (57.75 percent) and potatoes (55.75 percent), while a decrease was observed in the prices of onions (37.10 percent), electricity for q1 (18.06 percent), pulse masoor (15.07 percent) and vegetable ghee 1 kg (1.13 percent). During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 23 (45.10 percent) items increased, 07 (13.72 percent) items decreased and 21 (41.18 percent) items remained stable. The items, which recorded an increase in their average prices during the week over the previous include tomatoes (16.85 percent), LPG (9.82 percent), petrol super (7.86 percent), hi-speed diesel (7.82 percent), chilies powder national 200 gm packet each (7.58 percent), garlic (5.71 percent), onions (5.50 percent), powdered milk nido 390 gm polybag each (5.17 percent), eggs (3.86 percent), rice basmati broken (2.06 percent), gur (1.66 percent), firewood whole 40 kg (1.51 percent), pulse mash (1.25 percent), rice irri-6/9 (0.84 percent), toilet soap lifebuoy 115 gm each (0.66 percent), potatoes (0.58 percent), sugar (0.45 percent), milk fresh (0.43 percent), curd (0.38 percent), beef with bone (0.35 percent), bananas (0.34 percent), pulse masoor (0.21 percent) and mutton (0.11 percent). The items, which recorded a decrease in their average prices during the week over the previous include mustard oil (1.63 percent), chicken (1.40 percent), vegetable ghee dalda/habib or other superior quality 1 kg pouch each (0.51 percent), vegetable ghee dalda/habib 2.5 kg tin each (0.36 percent), pulse gram (0.22 percent), wheat flour bag 20 kg (0.20 percent) and pulse moong (0.03 percent).