Weekly inflation records 0.26% decline: PBS report

ISLAMABAD: Weekly inflation for the combined group during the period ended on December 10 recorded a decrease of 0.26 per cent due to a decline in prices of essential food items, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).

The Sensitive Price Index (SPI) is calculated on the basis of the prices of 51 essential items collected from 50 markets in 17 cities of the country.

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A report compiled by the PBS said the decrease was witnessed mainly due to a drop in prices of food items, including potatoes, down 7.31pc; sugar, down 6.97pc; onions, down 6.78pc; tomatoes, down 1.22pc; masoor pulse, down 0.96pc; gur, down 0.79pc; wheat flour bag, down 0.72pc; mash pulse, down 0.32pc; rice basmati brokem, down 0.30pc; gram pulse, down 0.26pc; and moon pulse, down 0.22pc.

On the other hand, an increase was observed in the prices of food items i.e. an increase was observed in the prices of food items i.e. eggs, up 6.96pc and garlic, up 1.07pc.

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The year on year trend depicts an increase of 8.44pc with most of the items increased mainly chilies powder (86.31pc), chicken (68.29pc), eggs (63.66pc), potatoes (48.63pc), match box (24.40pc), sufi washing soap (21.42pc), mash pulse (18.72pc), vegetable ghee 1kg (18.21pc), moong pulse (16.90pc), long cloth (16.57pc), mustard oil (16.18pc), shirting (16.11pc), masoor pulse (15.17pc) and rice IRRI (15.14pc). While a major decrease was observed in the price of onions (21.97pc), garlic (17.00pc), diesel (15.56pc), petrol (11.58pc), electricity for Q1 (9.84pc), tomatoes (9.59pc) and LPG (2.78pc).