Islamabad. Pakistan’s weekly (short-term) inflation based on the Sensitive Price Index (SPI) rose to an unprecedented 47.23 per cent for the week ended April 19 over the same period last year. The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) has given this information through statistics on Friday.
The SPI in the country has been on a steady rise since August last year and mostly remains above 40 per cent. Inflation had touched 42.31 per cent on August 18 last year, 45.5 per cent on September 1 and 46.65 per cent on March 22 this year. The rise on a weekly basis was mainly due to rising food prices, resulting in week-by-week inflation. On a week-on-week basis, the short-term inflation rate increased by 0.51 percent. Inflation has increased due to increase in the prices of food items, especially potatoes, tea, bread, chicken, LPG and petrol.
Record devaluation of the Pakistani rupee, persistently rising petrol prices, hike in sales tax and higher electricity tariff have accounted for most of the rise in SPI since the start of Ramadan. The increase in prices of perishable products has also led to an increase in transportation charges. Economists believe that there are several reasons for the current high prices, including the highest ever transportation cost for supplies, while the government The focus is only on reducing the inflation in the market, which has not yielded positive results so far.
The government has been taking tough measures such as hike in fuel and power rates, withdrawal of subsidies, market-based exchange rate and higher taxation to raise revenue to reduce fiscal deficit under the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme.
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