Short-term inflation falls by 0.12 pc

F.P. Report

ISLAMABAD: The weekly inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), witnessed a decrease of 0.12 percent for the combined consumption groups during the week ended on August 1st, the 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 321.56 points as compared to 321.95 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 18.41 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, decreased by 0.90 per cent and went down to 309.40 points from last week’s 312.22 points.

The SPI for the lowest consumption groups of Rs 17,732-22,888, Rs 22,889-29,517; Rs 29,518-44,175 and above Rs 44,175 decreased by 1.36 percent, 0.17 percent, 0.23 and 0.80 percent respectively.

During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 24 (47.06%) items increased, 7 (13.72%) items decreased and 20 (39.22%) items remained stable.

The items, which recorded major decrease in their average prices on a week-on-week basis included electricity charges for Q1 (15.80%), bananas (4.87%), diesel (3.81%), petrol (2.23%), wheat flour (0.98%) and sugar (0.21%) and cigarettes (0.21%).

The commodities which recorded major increase in their average prices on week-on-week basis included chicken (5.91%), eggs (1.58%), cooked daal (1.05%), pulse gram (0.78%), cooked beef (0.53%), rice basmati broken (0.44%), garlic (0.43%), onions (0.40%), shirting (0.09%) and LPG (0.06%).

On-year basis, the commodities that witnessed decrease included wheat flour (32.28%), electricity charges for q1 (15.46%), cooking oil 5 litre (13.44%), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (9.99%), vegetable ghee 1 kg (9.21%), eggs (7.90%), chili powder (7.04%), mustard oil (6.80%), rice basmati broken (5.68%), petrol(1.20%) and diesel (0.16%).

The commodities which recorded an increase in their average prices on year-on-year basis included gas charges for Q1 (570.00%), onions (86.53%), pulse gram (41.78%), powered milk (32.32%), pulse moong (30.21%), garlic (27.88%), shirting (25.09%), gents sandal (25.01%), salt powder (23.28%), beef (23.13%), pulse mash (21.22%) and energy saver (17.96%).