Weekly inflation reaches 34.83 percent

F.P. Report

ISLAMABAD: The weekly inflation, measured by Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), witnessed an increase of 0.17 percent for the combined consumption group during the week ended on February 09, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported on Friday.

The SPI for the week under review in the above-mentioned group was recorded at 228.17 points as compared to 227.79 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 34.83 percent.

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

The SPI for the lowest consumption group up to Rs 17,732 witnessed a 0.06 percent decrease and went up to 233.61 points from last week’s 233.76 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 an increase of 0.02 percent, 0.10 percent, 0.14 percent and 0.22 percent respectively.

On the other hand decrease is observed in the prices of Onions (9.83%), Tomatoes (5.40%), Eggs (3.40%), Wheat Flour (2.71%) and Sugar (0.31%)

The items which recorded a decrease in their average prices on a week-on-week (WoW) basis included onions (9.83%), tomatoes (5.40%), eggs (3.40%), wheat flour (2.71%) and sugar (0.31%), according to the data.

The commodities which recorded an increase in their average prices included potatoes (7.15%), chicken (6.94%), bananas (6.53%), vegetable ghee 1 kg (5.67%), rice basmati broken (3.80%), rice irri-6/9 (3.64%), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (2.71%), cooking oil 5 kg (2.60%), pulse mash (2.42%) and garlic (2.20%), pulse moong (2.20%) LPG (3.06%) and cigarettes (2.25%).

On a year-on-year (YoY) basis, the commodities that witnessed a decrease in prices included tomatoes (57.76%), chillies powdered (12.43%) and electricity for q1 (12.31%).

The commodities that witnessed an increase in prices on a YoY basis included, , onions (507.98%), chicken (93.21%), diesel (81.41%), eggs (79.19%), rice basmati broken (68.92%), petrol (68.77%), rice irri-6/9 (68.26%), pulse moong (66.30%), tea packet (63.92%), bananas (61.88%), pulse gram (56.80%), bread (50.66%), lpg (50.41%), pulse mash (50.25%) and salt powdered (46.46%).