Weekly Inflation Stubborn Near 30% Due to Costly Gas, Food Items

The Sensitive Price Index (SPI) based inflation for the week ended on April 04, 2024, increased by 0.96 percent over the previous week, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS). The year on year trend depicts increase of 29.45 percent mainly due to increase in the prices of gas charges for Q1 (570 percent), onions (107.59 percent), chilies powder (86.05 percent), garlic (53.51 percent), tomatoes (35.77 percent), gur (34.00 percent), salt powder (32.78 percent), pulse mash (26.98 percent) and tea prepared (23.34 percent). A decrease was observed in the prices of bananas (26.68 percent), cooking oil 5 litre (20.53 percent), mustard oil (14.22 percent), wheat flour (5.86 percent), diesel (3.61 percent), and cigarettes (0.06 percent). During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 16 (31.37 percent) items increased, 13 (25.49 percent) items decreased and 22 (43.14 percent) items remained stable. The items, prices of which, increased during the period under review include tomatoes (11.93 percent), petrol super (3.45 percent), chicken (2.99 percent), onions (1.30 percent), bread plain (1.03 percent), beef with bone (0.75 percent), garlic (0.70 percent), mutton (0.41 percent), and rice basmati broken (0.14 percent). The items, prices of which, declined during the period under review include bananas (3.57 percent), wheat flour bag 20 kg (2.68 percent), eggs (1.89 percent), LPG (1.89 percent), hi-speed diesel (1.18 percent), gur (0.63 percent), sugar (0.41 percent), mustard oil (0.26 percent), pulse masoor (0.25 percent), potatoes (0.23 percent), pulse gram (0.16 percent), pulse moong (0.04 percent) and cooking oil dalda or other similar brand (sn), 5 litre tin each (0.01 percent).