PBS report shows decline in inflation by 0.23 percent in week

ISLAMABAD: A weekly review of the prices of commodities in the country by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) showed a decline of 0.23 percent in the week ending on December 03 as inflation stood at 8.14 percent in the country, ARY NEWS reported.

According to a detailed statement issued by the PBS, it emerged that the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) for the current week ended on December 03 recorded a decrease of 0.23 percent over last week.

This decrease is mainly due to a fall in prices of food items including tomatoes (10.78 percent), onions (8.15 percent), potatoes (7.81 percent), sugar (7.56 percent), gur (1.39 percent), garlic (1.22 percent), wheat flour bag (0.38 percent), pulse Gram (0.21 percent), Basmati rice broken (0.19 percent), Pulse masoor (0.09 percent), Beef (0.08 percent), Rice IRRI-6/9 (0.03 percent) and mutton (0.03 percent) with the joint impact of (-0.85) into the overall SPI for the combined group of (-0.23 percent).

On the other hand, an increase was observed in the prices of food items including chicken (10.57 percent), eggs (3.23 percent), bananas (2.40 percent) and vegetable ghee per kilogram (1.07 percent) and among non-food items, diesel (3.92 percent) and firewood (1.08 percent).

During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 17 (33.33 percent) items increased, 13 (25.49 percent) items decreased and 21 (41.18 percent) items remained constant.

Read More: PBS data reveals surge in weekly inflation by 1.38 pc across Pakistan

The year on year trend depicts an increase of 8.14% with most of the items increased mainly chilies powder (86.31 percent), chicken (67.18 percent), eggs (61.59 percent), potatoes (61.47 percent), matchbox (24.40 percent), sugar (22.12 percent), Sufi washing soap (21.26 percent), pulse Mash (18.97 percent), pulse Moong (17.83 percent), Vegetable Ghee 1kg (17.53 percent), long cloth (16.57 percent), pulse Masoor (16.12 percent), bread (15.95 percent), mustard oil (15.74 percent), shirting (15.72 percent) and gur (15.68 percent).

While a major decrease was observed in the price of tomatoes (27.65 percent), onions (18.50 percent), garlic (18.20 percent), diesel (15.56 percent), petrol (11.58 percent), electricity for Q1 (9.84 percent), and LPG (2.36 percent).