Pakistan’s annual inflation slowed to 4.9% in November largely due to a high base a year earlier, the statistics bureau said on Monday, lower than the government’s forecast.

The finance ministry had projected inflation would slow to 5.8%-6.8% in November and ease to 5.6%-6.5% in December, in a monthly economic report published last week.

The South Asian country slashed interest rates by 250 basis points earlier in November to help revive a sluggish economy amid a big drop in the rate of inflation.

Consumer inflation cooled from 7.2% in October, a sharp drop from a multi-decade high of nearly 40% in May 2023.

“This marks the lowest inflation rate since April 2018, when it was 3.96%,” said Arif Habib Limited in a research note, adding that the average reading for the first five months of the current fiscal year (that began on July 1) - of 7.9% - compared to 28.6% for the same period last year.

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Consumer prices in November rose 0.5% from October, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics.

Pakistan’s benchmark share index closed up 1.89% on Monday at a record high, according to the PSX website.