KARACHI - Pakistan's annual consumer 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, it said in its 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.

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

(Reporting by Ariba Shahid in Karachi; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)