Pakistan’s inflation has accelerated adding pressure on the central bank to raise interest rates.
Consumer prices rose 13.16 percent in March from a year earlier after a 12.91 percent gain in February, the Federal Bureau of Statistics said in Islamabad today. The median of eight estimates in a Bloomberg survey was for a 13.3 percent increase.
Pakistan central bank Governor Shahid Kardar has signaled concern a further increase in the benchmark rate, one of the highest in the world, will hurt growth.
Pakistan’s $168 billion economy, sapped by terrorism and floods in 2010, is lagging behind as emerging markets from neighboring India to China help lead the global economic rebound from the deepest postwar recession.
The government forecasts the economy will expand 2.5 percent in the year through June, slower than the original target of 4.5 percent.
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