The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) data released on Friday indicates the weekly inflation rose to 41.07 percent annually due to increased edible oil, sugar, and vegetable.
As measured by the Sensitive Price Index (SPI), short-term inflation remained elevated and will rise further as consumers begin to feel the full impact of increased electricity rates.
The price of bananas, chicken, sugar, cooking oil, gasoline, and cigarettes increased for the week ending March 2, despite a 0.30 percent decline in weekly inflation.
32 of the 51 tracked items had price increases, nine experienced decreases, and 10 remained unchanged.
Onions (311.17pc), cigarettes (165.86pc), gas charges for Q1 (108.38pc), diesel (93.82pc), petrol (77.89pc), eggs (77.83pc), rice irri-6/9 (76.96pc), rice basmati broken (75.55pc), pulse moong (73.30pc), bananas (72.66pc), chicken (64.70pc), and tea Lipton were the commodities whose prices jumped (64.53pc).
Nonetheless, tomato prices (down 56.29 percent) and red pepper powder prices (down 7.42 percent) fell the greatest year-over-year.
The prices of bananas (7.34%), long cloth (3.44%), energy saver (3.33%), vegetable ghee 1kg (2.48%), gur (2.03%), cooked daal (1.87%), tea Lipton (1.79%), matchbox (1.66%), lawn printed (1.52%), cooking oil 5 liters (1.45%), and sugar (1.04%) fluctuated the most from one week to the next.
Onions (-13.24 percent), eggs (6.11 percent), garlic (4.24 percent), chicken (2.0 percent), tomatoes (-0.59 percent), pulse gram (-0.38 percent), and potatoes (-0.33 percent), LPG (1.84 percent), and gasoline were the commodities whose costs decreased the greatest from the previous week (1 point 80 percent).
Under IMF directives, the government has implemented stringent measures that are anticipated to chill the economy and fuel inflation further. In addition, due to the increase in the policy rate general sales tax from 17 to 18 percent, retail prices for consumer items would climb even higher.
The administration has already undertaken several reforms to reduce the budget deficit, including a market-based exchange rate, higher fuel and energy costs, eliminating subsidies, and greater taxation.
Owing to these moves, the government’s predicted yearly inflation rate has jumped from 26 percent to 31 percent.