Pakistan's weekly inflation drops to 15.34 pc

ISLAMABAD: The weekly inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), witnessed further decrease of 0.62 percent for the combined consumption groups during the week ended on August 29, ARY News reported quoting the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).

According to the PBS data, the SPI for the week under review in the above-mentioned group was recorded at 319.73 points as compared to 321.72 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 15.34 per cent.

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

Likewise, SPI for the lowest consumption group of up to Rs 17,732, however witnessed an increase of 0.24 per cent and went up to 310.80 points from last week’s 310.29  points.

The SPI for consumption group of Rs 17,732 to 22,888 also witnessed an increase of 0.11 percent. However the SPI for the consumption groups of Rs 22,889-29,517; Rs 29,518-44,175 and above Rs 44,175 decreased by 0.64 percent, 0.86 and 0.58 percent respectively.

During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 17 (33.33%) items increased, 10 (19.61%) items decreased and 24 (47.06%) items remained stable.

The items, which recorded major decrease in their average prices on a week-on-week basis included chicken (3.02%), bananas (2.35%), chilies powder (1.42%), wheat flour (0.85%), pulse masoor (0.68%), bread (0.56%), pulse mash (0.53%) and sugar (0.49%).

The commodities which recorded major increase in their average prices on week-on-week basis included tomatoes (8.03%), onions (6.53%), pulse gram (2.20%), garlic (1.76%), potatoes (0.63%), eggs (0.55%), LPG (0.51%), gur and rice basmati broken (0.41%) each, firewood (0.12%) and shirting (0.07%).

On-year basis, the commodities that witnessed decrease included wheat flour (36.73%), chilies powder (18.94%), electricity charges for q1 (16.91%), sugar (16.08%), cooking oil 5 litre (11.32%), petrol (10.07%), diesel (9.22%), rice basmati broken (8.81%), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (7.24%), vegetable ghee 1 kg (6.20%), gur (4.63%) and washing soap (0.35%).

The commodities which recorded an increase in their average prices on year-on-year basis included gas charges for q1 (570.00%), onions (95.16%), pulse gram (53.59%), tomatoes (43.21%), powered milk (26.14%), garlic (25.74%), beef (23.93%), pulse moong (23.72%), shirting (23.70%), salt powder (21.45%), georgette (15.18%) and energy saver (12.87%.