Weekly inflation decrease by 0.36 percent

F.P. Report

ISLAMABAD: The weekly inflation, measured by Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), witnessed a decrease of 0.36 percent for the combined consumption group during the week ended on March 30, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported on Friday.

The SPI for the week under review in the above-mentioned group was recorded at 249.75 points as compared to 250.66 points during the past week, according to PBS data. 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 45.36 percent.

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

The SPI for the lowest consumption group up to Rs17,732 witnessed a 0.42 percent decrease and went down to 256.53 points from last week’s 257.62 points.

Meanwhile, the SPI for the consumption group from Rs 17,732-22-888; Rs 22,889-29,517; Rs 29,518-44,175; and above Rs 44,175 witnessed a decrease of 0.41 percent, 0.37 percent, 0.37 percent, and 0.34 percent respectively. During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 23 (45.10%) items increased, 11 (21.57%) items decreased and 17 (33.33%) items remained stable.

The items which recorded a decrease in their average prices on a week-on-week (WoW) included onions (15.10%), chicken (11.96%), tomatoes (10.26%), cooking oil 5 litre (1.24%), vegetable ghee 1 kg (1.07%), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (0.77%), pulse gram (0.42%), pulse moong (0.22%) and mustard oil (0.17%), non-food items, LPG (1.35%) and firewood (0.35%).

The items that recorded an increase in their average prices on a week-on-week (wow) basis included bananas (7.54%), eggs (7.22%), mutton (2.39%), sugar (2.12%), wheat flour (1.91%), tea lipton (1.79%), georgette & shirting (1.32%) each, milk fresh (1.12%) and beef (1.02%).

On a year-on-year (YoY) basis, the commodities which recorded a decrease in their average prices included tomatoes (10.88%) and chillies powdered (9.56%).
The commodities that witnessed an increase in prices on a YOY included cigarettes (165.88%), onions (127.07%), wheat flour (123.22%), gas charges for Q1 (108.38%), diesel (102.84%), tea lipton (98.08%), eggs (96.67%), bananas (94.89%), rice basmati broken (83.65%), petrol (81.17%), rice irri-6/9 (79.17%), pulse moong (67.85%) and potatoes (56.44%) (APP)