There was a 22-month high in December 2021 in the Consumer Price Index (CPI)-based reading of 12.3 percent, up from the previous month’s 11.5 percent and December 2020’s 8.0 percent increase, according to data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Saturday. The inflation rate is the highest since February 2020, when it was 12.40 percent, according to Arif Habib Limited, a brokerage house. Compared to 8.63 percent in 1HFY21, the average annual inflation rate in 1HFY22 is 9.81 percent. Since taking office, the current government has had to deal with an ever-increasing import bill, an increasing trade deficit, and less-than-desired foreign exchange inflows. After a 100-basis-point rate increase at the previous Monetary Policy Committee meeting, the central bank now has a discount rate of 9.75 percent. The central bank has raised the discount rate by 275 basis points since September of last year. There was a 12.7 percent year-on-year increase in CPI inflation in urban areas in December 2021, up from 12 percent in the previous month and 7.0 percent in the previous year. Compared to the previous month’s increase of 2.9 percent and December 2020’s decrease of 0.3pc, it grew by 0.3 percent month-to-month in December 2021. In December 2021, rural CPI inflation increased by 11.6pc on a year-over-year basis, compared to a rise of 10.9pc the month before and a rise of 9.5pc in December 2020. Comparing December 2021 to December 2020, it fell 0.5 percent month over month, after increasing by 3.1pc the month before and falling by 1.2pc in the month before that. In December 2021, the SPI inflation rate increased by 20.9 percent on a year-over-year basis, compared to an increase of 18.1 percent in November and an increase of 9.1 percent in December 2020. It decreased by 0.4 percent in December 2021, compared to a 3.6 percent increase in the previous month and a 2.7 percent decrease in December 2020, on a monthly basis.