Weekly Inflation Stays Above 40% for 6th Straight Week Due to Costly Gas

The Sensitive Price Index (SPI)-based inflation for the week ended December 21, 2023, increased by 42.60 percent on a year-on-year basis, according to data issued by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Friday. This is the sixth straight week that the weekly inflation has remained over 40 percent on a year-on-year basis. However, the SPI for the current week decreased by 0.51 percent over the previous week. The year on year trend depicts an increase mainly due to increase in the prices of gas charges for Q1 (1108.59 percent), cigarettes (93.22 percent), chilies powder (81.74 percent), wheat flour (78.80 percent), garlic (72.48 percent), rice basmati broken (62.52 percent), rice irri-6/9 (59.45 percent), tomatoes (56.89 percent), sugar (50.33 percent) and gur (49.86 percent), while decrease was observed in the prices of onions (23.92 percent), mustard oil (4.24 percent), vegetable ghee 1 kg (1.59 percent), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (0.62 percent) and bananas (0.06 percent). During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 18 (35.29 percent) items increased, 09 (17.65 percent) items decreased and 24 (47.06 percent) items remained stable. The items’ prices that increased during the period include eggs (10.42 percent), firewood whole 40 kg (1.23 percent), onions (1.19 percent), pulse moong (0.88 percent), pulse gram (0.79 percent), pulse mash (0.73 percent), garlic (0.40 percent), rice irri-6/9 (0.40 percent), pulse masoor (0.30 percent), LPG (0.26 percent), bananas (0.19 percent), cooked beef (0.17 percent), and tea prepared (0.02 percent). The items prices of which decreased during the period under review include potatoes (13.17 percent), petrol super (4.97 percent), hi-speed diesel (4.68 percent), tomatoes (3.45 percent), sugar (1.16 percent), wheat flour bag 20 kg (0.33 percent), chicken (0.13 percent), and rice basmati broken (0.11 percent).