Pakistan's weekly inflation drops by 0.36pc

ISLAMABAD: The weekly inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), went down by 0.36 percent for the combined consumption groups during the week ended on January 30 and decelerated to 0.44 percent on a year-on-year (YoY) basis, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported on Friday.

According to the PBS data, the SPI for the week under review in the above-mentioned group was recorded at 319.06 points as compared to 320.21 points during the past week.

As compared to the corresponding week of last year, the SPI for the combined consumption group in the week under review witnessed an increase of 0.44 per cent.

The weekly SPI with the base year 2015-16 =100 covers 17 urban centres and 51 essential items for all expenditure groups.

The SPI for the lowest consumption group of up to Rs 17,732 witnessed decrease of 0.52 per cent and went down to 309.85 points from last week’s 311.47 points.

The SPI for consumption groups of Rs 17,732 to 22,888; Rs 22,889-29,517; Rs 29,518-44,175 and above Rs 44,175, declined by 0.47 percent, 0.39 percent, 0.35 percent and 0.29 percent respectively.

During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 09 (17.65%) items increased, 16 (31.37%) items decreased and 26 (50.98%) items remained stable.

The items, which recorded major decrease in their average prices on a week-on-week basis included tomatoes (16.18%), onions (12.32%), potatoes (7.66%), eggs (5.09%), pulse gram (3.67%), LPG (3.21%), pulse masoor (1.32%), electricity charges for q1 (0.99%), wheat flour bag (0.95%), garlic (0.41%) and firewood (0.27%).

The commodities which recorded major increase in their average prices on a week-on-week basis included bananas (4.60%), sugar (3.39%), chicken (0.93%), rice basmati broken (0.70%), cooking oil 5 litre (0.40%), vegetable ghee 1 kg (0.32%), beef (0.28%) and vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (0.26%).

Year-on-year basis, the commodities that witnessed decrease included onions (54.36%), eggs (37.38%), wheat flour (36.77%), tomatoes (35.82%), chillies powder (20.00%), electricity charges for q1 (18.92%), pulse masoor (11.48%), pulse mash (10.56%), rice basmati broken (7.92%), diesel (6.36%), petrol (6.07%) and LPG (3.47%)

The commodities which recorded an increase in their average prices on year-on-year basis included, ladies sandal (75.09%), potatoes (34.95%), pulse gram (32.92%), pulse moong (32.01%), powdered milk (25.71%), beef (22.52%), vegetable ghee 1 kg (17.46%), garlic (15.82%), gas charges for Q1 (15.52%), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (15.05%), shirting (14.83%) and firewood (12.82%).