Pakistan's inflation rise in second week of Ramadan

ISLAMABAD: The weekly inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), increased by 0.22 percent for the combined consumption groups during the week ended on March 13, 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 320.75 points as compared to 320.04 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 0.22 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 0.10 per cent and went up to 309.65 points from last week’s 309.33 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 0.17 percent, 0.18 percent, 0.22 percent and 0.25 percent respectively.

During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 12 (23.53%) items increased, 15 (29.41%) 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 onions (16.71%), potatoes (6.59%), garlic (5.29%), pulse gram (1.91%), eggs (1.55%), tea lipton (1.13%), pulse mash (0.49%) and tea prepared (0.39%).

The commodities which recorded major increase in their average prices on a week-on-week basis included tomatoes (36.43%), chicken (6.40%), bananas (6.05%), sugar (5.69%), LPG (1.44%), georgette & gur (1.32%) each, bread (1.13%), beef (0.57%), pulse moong (0.28%) and cigarettes (0.27%).

Year-on-year basis, the commodities that witnessed decrease onions (72.32%), tomatoes (51.96%), wheat flour (36.20%), chilies powder (20.00%), electricity charges for Q1 (18.92%), tea lipton (15.89%), pulse mash (14.98%), pulse masoor (12.38%), diesel (9.91%), petrol (8.55%) and  LPG (5.35%),

The commodities which recorded an increase in their average prices on year-on-year basis included ladies sandal (75.09%), pulse moong (26.84%), powdered milk (25.93%), beef (21.35%), pulse gram (19.42%), chicken (18.72%), sugar (18.55%), vegetable ghee 1 kg (16.13%), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (15.34%), shirting (12.98%), georgette (11.21%) and firewood (11.07%).a