Weekly Inflation Remains Near 30%

The Sensitive Price Index (SPI)-based inflation for the current week, ended on 26th October 2023, decreased by 0.33 percent, according to data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS). The year on year trend depicts increase of 29.65 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), Rice Basmati Broken (78.51 percent), Wheat Flour (77.49 percent), Sugar (63.22 percent), and Rice Irri-6/9 (62.83 percent), while decrease was observed in the prices of Tomatoes (31.90 percent), Onions (24.88 percent), Pulse Gram (5.82 percent), Mustard Oil (4.16 percent) and Vegetable Ghee 1 kg (0.92 percent). During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 14 (27.45 percent) items increased, 17 (33.33 percent) items decreased and 20 (39.22 percent) items remained stable. Selected items, which recorded an increase in their average prices during the week over the previous include tomatoes (20.81 percent), potatoes (3.33 percent), eggs (1.63 percent), salt powdered (0.91 percent), garlic (0.77 percent), tea prepared (0.67 percent), and bread plain (0.56 percent). Some of the items, which recorded a decrease in their average prices during the week over the previous include chicken (10.19 percent), onions (4.40 percent), rice IRRI-6/9 (3.84 percent), bananas (3.64 percent), gur (3.40 percent), pulse masoor (2.36 percent), sugar (2.22 percent), mustard oil (2.17 percent), wheat flour bag 20 kg (1.61 percent), pulse gram (1.54 percent), LPG (1.45 percent), rice basmati broken (1.16 percent), and pulse mash (1.02 percent).