By Mati Ullah Khan
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: The Consumer Price Index (CPI) jumped to 38.0 percent on Year-on-Year (YoY) basis in May 2023, registering the highest ever inflation in the history of Pakistan.
The latest statistics released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) revealed that the monthly CPI inflation increased to 38.0% on YoY basis in May 2023 as compared to an increase of 36.4% in the previous month (April 2023) and 13.8% in May 2022.
The data stated that on Month-on-Month (MoM) basis, the CPI inflation increased to 1.6% in May 2023 as compared to an increase of 2.4% in April 2023 and an increase of 0.4% in May 2022.
CPI for the month of May’23 clocked-in at 38.0% YoY (+1.6% MoM). This is the highest YoY inflation since the available data i.e. July 1965. This takes 11MFY23 average inflation to 29.2% compared to 11.3% in 11MFY22.@PBSofficialpak @StateBank_Pak #PBS #Inflation #Pakistan… pic.twitter.com/GVZlAqjmi0
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In April 2023, the YoY CPI inflation was witnessed as 36.4 percent in Pakistan which was marginally above 35.4 percent in March 2023.
As per the Monthly Economic Outlook report for May 2023, the average inflation stood at 28.2 percent in first 10 months of Fiscal Year 2022-2023 (July-April) as against 11.0 percent recorded in the same period of last FY.
CPI Inflation (YoY) in Pakistan since PML-N led PDM government took over in April 2022;
Month/Year | CPI Inflation (YoY) |
| April 2022 | 13.4% |
| May 2022 | 13.8% |
| June 2022 | 21.3% |
| July 2022 | 24.9% |
| August 2022 | 27.3% |
| September 2022 | 23.2% |
| October 2022 | 26.6% |
| November 2022 | 23.8% |
| December 2022 | 24.5% |
| January 2023 | 27.6% |
| February 2023 | 31.5% |
| March 2023 | 35.4% |
| April 2023 | 36.4% |
| May 2023 | 38.0% |
Source: https://www.pbs.gov.pk/sites/default/files/price_statistics/cpi/CPI_Review_May_2023.pdf
