Weekly Inflation Remains Near 44% Despite Marginal Decline

The Sensitive Price Index (SPI) for the week ended on January 25, 2024, increased by 43.79 percent on a year-on-year basis according to data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Friday. This is the tenth straight week that the weekly inflation reading has come over 40 percent. However, this week’s YoY reading is slightly less than last week’s figure of 44.64 percent. The year-on-year trend depicts an increase mainly due to an increase in the prices of gas charges for Q1 (1108.59 percent), tomatoes (133.36 percent), wheat flour (62.36 percent), sugar (58.52 percent), eggs (46.80 percent) and rice irri-6/9 (43.48 percent). The SPI for the current week decreased by 0.14 percent compared to the previous week due to a decline in the prices of tomatoes (14.14 percent), potatoes (5.06 percent), onions (1.64 percent), bananas (0.81 percent), pulse gram (0.33 percent), garlic (0.26 percent) and mustard oil (0.17 percent). During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 15 (29.41 percent) items increased, 13 (25.49 percent) items decreased and 23 (45.10 percent) items remained stable.