Pakistan's short-term inflation falls by 0.12pc

The weekly inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), witnessed a decrease of 0.12 percent for the combined consumption groups during the week ended on August 1, 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 321.56 points as compared to 321.95 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 18.41 per cent.

During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 24 (47.06%) items increased, 7 (13.72%) items decreased and 20 (39.22%) items remained stable.

The items, which recorded major decrease in their average prices on a week-on-week basis included electricity charges for Q1 (15.80%), bananas (4.87%), diesel (3.81%), petrol (2.23%), wheat flour (0.98%) and sugar (0.21%) and cigarettes (0.21%).

The commodities which recorded major increase in their average prices on week-on-week basis included chicken (5.91%), eggs (1.58%), cooked daal (1.05%), pulse gram (0.78%), cooked beef (0.53%), rice basmati broken (0.44%), garlic (0.43%), onions (0.40%), shirting (0.09%) and LPG (0.06%).

On-year basis, the commodities that witnessed decrease included wheat flour (32.28%), electricity charges for q1 (15.46%), cooking oil 5 litre (13.44%), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (9.99%), vegetable ghee 1 kg (9.21%), eggs (7.90%), chili powder (7.04%), mustard oil (6.80%), rice basmati broken (5.68%), petrol(1.20%) and diesel (0.16%).

The commodities which recorded an increase in their average prices on year-on-year basis included gas charges for Q1 (570.00%), onions (86.53%), pulse gram (41.78%), powered milk (32.32%), pulse moong (30.21%), garlic (27.88%), shirting (25.09%), gents sandal (25.01%), salt powder (23.28%), beef (23.13%), pulse mash (21.22%) and energy saver (17.96%).