Pakistan's weekly inflation down by 0.34%

ISLAMABAD: The weekly inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), decelerated to 3.57 percent on year-on-year (YoY) basis during the week ended on December 05 as compared to corresponding week of last year, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported on Friday.

On Week-on-Week basis, the inflation, witnessed a decrease of 0.34 percent for the combined consumption groups during the week under review as compared to the last week as it was recorded at 322.91 points as compared to 324.00 points respectively.

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

SPI for the lowest consumption group of up to Rs 17,732 witnessed decrease of 0.44 per cent and went down to 317.20 points from last week’s 318.60 points.

The SPI for consumption groups from Rs 17,732 to 22,888; Rs 22,889-29,517; Rs 29,518-44,175 and above Rs 44,175 decreased by 0.45 percent, 0.39 percent, 0.38 percent and 0.28 percent respectively.

During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 18 (35.29%) items increased, 10 (19.61%) items decreased and 23 (45.10%) items remained stable.

The items, which recorded major decrease in their average prices on a week-on-week basis included tomatoes (25.15%), chicken (9.90%), pulse mash (1.67%), pulse gram (0.73%), wheat flour (0.71%), pulse masoor (0.46%), rice basmati broken & rice irri-6/9 (0.37%) each and LPG (0.19%).

The commodities which recorded major increase in their average prices on week-on-week basis included garlic (1.83%), vegetable ghee 2.5kg (1.72%), potatoes (1.69%), petrol (1.48%), sugar (1.33%), diesel (1.27%), onions (1.10%), vegetable ghee 1kg (1.07%), cooking oil 5 litre (0.99%), bananas (0.48%), firewood (0.14%) and cigarettes (0.09%)

On year-on-year basis, the commodities that witnessed decrease included wheat flour (35.40%), chilies powder (20.00%), diesel (10.77%), petrol (10.33%), pulse masoor (9.66%), rice basmati broken (7.86%), tea packet (7.53%), chicken (7.34%), electricity charges for Q1 (6.96%), bread (5.99%) and onions (4.55%).

The commodities which recorded an increase in their average prices on year-on-year basis included ladies sandal (75.09%), pulse gram (65.64%), pulse moong (37.83%), powdered milk (25.74%), beef (23.77%), tomatoes (17.93%), garlic (17.44%), potatoes (17.31%), gas charges for Q1 ( 15.52%), shirting (15.03%), cooked daal (15.02%) and georgette (13.07%).