High food, energy prices keep inflation elevated.

KARACHI -- The weekly inflation reading, measured by the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), increased by 0.30% in the wake of higher prices of food and energy in the week ended October 12, 2023 compared to the prior week.

Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported on Friday that the index spiked 38.28% when compared with the corresponding week of last year.

Out of the 51 essential commodities covered by SPI, prices of 17 (33.33%) items increased, rates of another 17 decreased and prices of the remaining 17 items remained unchanged compared to the previous week.

SPI monitors prices of these 51 items in 50 markets across 17 cities of the country.

On a weekly basis, the price of tomato rose 6.28%, egg 3.48%, powdered salt 2.75%, cooked beef 1.06%, garlic 1.04%, tea (prepared) 0.73%, beef 0.39% and potato 0.35%.

Among non-food commodities, the electricity charges for Q1 rose 8.59%, energy savers 0.55%, shirting 0.47% and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) 0.31%, according to the PBS.

The year-on-year trend depicted price increases in the range of 58-137% among different items. These included electricity charges for Q1, gas charges for Q1, cigarettes, Basmati rice (broken), chilli powder, wheat flour, Irri-6/9 rice, sugar, gur, powdered salt, Lipton tea and gents' sponge chappal.

Pakistan has been facing a...