Pakistan weekly inflation up 0.12% in last week of October

Pakistan’s weekly inflation inched up 0.12% in the week that ended on October 30, according to official data.

The Sensitive Price Index (SPI) – which tracks the movement of prices of food and other daily use items on a weekly basis – went up 5.05% compared to the same period last year.

Last week, the index went up by 0.22%.

On a weekly basis, the prices of 14 items increased, led by onions whose price surged by 59.54%, according to data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).

Other items whose prices witnessed the biggest increase include eggs (3.24%), broiler chicken (2.40%), garlic (1.72%), firewood (0.93%), and cooking oil (0.64%).

The items whose prices saw the biggest decrease were tomatoes (-47.02%), gram pulse (-1.66%) masoor pulse (-1.20%), moong pulse (-0.65%), and LPG (-0.60%).

On a year-on-year basis, the prices of onions increase by 19.98%, firewood 12.51%, vegetable ghee 2.5 liter 12.34%, cooking oil 5-liter by 9.95%, and eggs by 9.23%.

SPI is computed every week to assess the price movement of essential commodities. It comprises 51 essential items collected from 50 markets in 17 cities of the country.

Pakistan’s monthly inflation clocked at 5.6% in September, lower than the expectation as most of the analysts were expecting the rate to be in the range of 6% to 7%.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has estimated that Pakistan’s inflation is expected to increase due to flood-related disruptions.

Earlier this month, the Fund allowed Pakistan to revise its tax revenue target downward by PKR 166 billion due to PKR 80 billion loss caused by recent floods, which severely disrupted economic activity in the affected regions, and a PKR 86 billion shortfall resulting from lower-than-expected inflation during the first quarter (July-September) of the current fiscal year.