{"id":30974,"date":"2023-05-02T13:39:57","date_gmt":"2023-05-02T13:39:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/pakistan-inflation-hits-record\/"},"modified":"2023-05-02T13:43:56","modified_gmt":"2023-05-02T13:43:56","slug":"food-pushes-pakistan-inflation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/food-pushes-pakistan-inflation\/","title":{"rendered":"Food pushes Pakistan inflation to record 36.4% in April"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Ariba Shahid<\/p>\n<p>KARACHI, Pakistan (Reuters) -Pakistan inflation rose to a record 36.4% in the year to April driven mainly by food prices, the highest rate in South Asia and up from March&#8217;s 35.4%, the statistics bureau said on Tuesday. <\/p>\n<p>Pakistan&#8217;s rural areas recorded food inflation of 40.2%, the bureau told Reuters. Food inflation for both rural and urban areas reached 48.1%, the highest since FY16 when the bureau started recording the categories separately.<\/p>\n<p>Prices rose 2.4% in April from March, the bureau said in a press release.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The higher reading was expected over the hyperinflation in the food segment,&#8221; said Amreen Soorani, head of research at JS Capital, a Karachi based investment company.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;While the trend may continue for a couple of months more, the base effect is likely to kick in from June-2023, slowing the pace.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The finance ministry said headline inflation was expected to remain at elevated levels in the months to come, despite contractionary monetary policy by the central bank.<\/p>\n<p>Pakistan has been in economic turmoil for months with an acute balance of payments crisis while talks with the International Monetary Fund to secure $1.1 billion as part of a $6.5 billion bailout have not been successful. <\/p>\n<p>The country has taken measures to try to secure the funding, including removing caps on the exchange rate, resulting in a depreciating currency, increasing taxes, removing subsidies and raising key interest rates to a record high of 21%.<\/p>\n<p>The finance ministry said a successful completion of talks with the IMF will eventually attract more capital inflows, stabilise the exchange rate and alleviate inflationary pressures.       <\/p>\n<p>Persistently high inflation has resulted in major lifestyle and consumption changes, with a greater number of people seeking help.<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Ariba Shahid; Editing by Toby Chopra and Nick Macfie)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/food-pushes-pakistan-inflation\/file-photo-people-buy-dry-fruits-at-a-market-in\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ410I4-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ410I4-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Ariba Shahid KARACHI, Pakistan (Reuters) -Pakistan inflation rose to a record 36.4% in the year to April driven mainly by food prices, the highest rate in South Asia and up from March&#8217;s 35.4%, the statistics bureau said on Tuesday. Pakistan&#8217;s rural areas recorded food inflation of 40.2%, the bureau told Reuters. Food inflation for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":30975,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1213],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-30974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-business","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ410I4-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30974"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31030,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30974\/revisions\/31030"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}