Pakistan inflation rises to 35.37% in March

Man checks the size of a jacket at a stall selling secondhand clothes at Landa Bazar in Karachi.

In March, consumer price inflation in Pakistan increased to 35.37% from a year ago, as at least 16 people were killed in stampedes for food aid, the statistics bureau said on Saturday.

The March inflation number eclipsed February's 31.5%, the bureau said, as food, beverage and transport prices surged up to 50% year-on-year.

Thousands of people have gathered at flour distribution centres set up across the country, some as part of a government-backed programme to reduce the impact of inflation.

At least 16 people, including five women and three children, have been killed in recent days in stampedes at such centres, police and officials said. Thousands of bags of flour have been looted from trucks and distribution points, according to official records.

A spokesman for the statistics bureau said the inflation number was the highest year-on-year increase recorded by the bureau since monthly records began in the 1970s.

This is the highest inflation recorded in the data we have, he said.

In March, the consumer price index was up 3.72% from the previous month, the bureau said.

It said that higher prices of food, cooking oil and electricity pushed up the index.

The Bureau said that the annual food inflation for urban and rural areas was 47.1% and 50.2% in March. Core inflation, which strips out food and energy, was 18.6% in urban areas and 23.1% in rural areas.

South Asian nation has been in economic turmoil for months with an acute balance of payments crisis, while talks with the IMF to get $1.1 billion funding as part of the $6.5 billion bailout agreed in 2019 have not yet yielded fruit.

Pakistan's foreign exchange reserves have fallen to barely four weeks of imports.

The finance ministry projected that inflation would remain elevated in the month of February, according to a monthly outlook report.

The report cited market frictions caused by relative demand and supply gaps of essential items, exchange rate depreciation, and the recent upward adjustment in fuel prices as reasons behind higher inflation expectations.