Pakistan weekly inflation up by 0.38pc ahead of Ramadan

ISLAMABAD: The weekly inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), went up by 0.38 percent for the combined consumption groups during the week ended on February 27, and decelerated to 0.32 percent on Year-on-Year (YoY) basis, 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 320.32 points as compared to 319.12 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 0.32 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 increase of 0.36 per cent and went down to 309.94 points from last week’s 308.82 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, went up by 0.38 percent, 0.37 percent, 0.42 percent and 0.33 percent respectively.

During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 19 (37.25%) items increased, 11 (21.57%) items decreased and 21 (41.18%) items remained stable.

The items, which recorded major decrease in their average prices on a week-on-week basis included tea packet (6.62%), bread (1.67%), pulse mash (1.12%), mustard oil (1.08%), garlic (1.00%), LPG (0.37%), vegetable ghee 1 kg (0.32%), pulse gram (0.21%) and vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (0.11%).

The commodities which recorded major increase in their average prices on a week-on-week basis included tomatoes (11.49%), bananas (8.32%), eggs (5.43%), chicken (4.13%), potatoes (2.79%), onions (2.04%), beef (1.68%), sugar (1.55%) and cigarettes (0.51%).

Year-on-year basis, the commodities that witnessed decrease included onions (50.26%), tomatoes (48.14%), wheat flour (36.99%), chilies powder (20.00%), electricity charges for q1 (18.92%), pulse mash (12.16%), tea packet (12.09%), pulse masoor (11.23%), rice basmati broken (8.47%), diesel (8.07%), petrol (6.97%) and LPG (0.84%)

The commodities which recorded an increase in their average prices on year-on-year basis included, ladies sandal (75.09%), pulse moong (28.47%), bananas (27.78%), pulse gram (25.93%), powdered milk (25.86%), beef (24.12%), potatoes (23.24%), garlic (17.26%), vegetable ghee 1 kg (16.29%), shirting (14.11%), firewood (12.73%) and georgette (10.89%).