World News | Inflation in Pakistan rises to record 37.97%

ISLAMABAD, June 1 (PTI) Pakistan’s annual inflation rate rose to a record 37.97 percent year-on-year in May, according to official data on Thursday.

Pakistan is currently in the throes of a major political and economic crisis, grappling with high foreign debt, a weak currency and dwindling foreign exchange reserves.

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Inflation is measured against a basket of goods and services called the Consumer Price Index (CPI), where items are divided into 12 main components with different weights.

According to the data with price increase records released by the Bureau of Statistics, the highest year-on-year increase is in tobacco and alcohol, with an increase of 123.96%, 72.17% in entertainment, and the largest increase in transportation. It is 52.92%.

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Among the food groups, the items with the largest price increases in May compared to the same period last year were cigarettes, potatoes, wheat flour, tea, wheat and eggs, and rice.

Among the non-food categories, the biggest gainers were textbooks, stationery, motor fuel, laundry soap, detergent and matchboxes.

This follows a record year-on-year inflation rate of 36.4% in April.

With the latest increase in CPI, the average inflation rate for the 11 months (July-May) of this fiscal year reached 29.16%, compared with 11.29% in the previous year.

Inflation has hit every household in Pakistan since the start of the year after the government took painful steps as part of a fiscal adjustment required by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to revive a stalled $6.5 billion aid package.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)