Weekly inflation falls by 0.51pc

23 December 2023

Published in: The Nation

The weekly inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), witnessed a decrease of 0.51 percent for the combined consumption groups during the week ended on December 21, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported on Friday.
The SPI for the week under review in the above-mentioned group was recorded at 310.00 points as compared to 311.58 points during the past week, according to the 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 42.60 percent.
The weekly SPI with the base year 2015-16 =100 covers 17 urban centers and 51 essential items for all expenditure groups.
The SPI for the lowest consumption group up to Rs 17,732, decreased by 0.39 percent and went down to 304.83 points from last week’s 306.02 points.
The SPI for consumption groups from Rs 17,732-22,888, Rs 22,889-29,517; Rs 29,518-44,175 and above Rs 44,175 it decreased by 0.40 percent, 0.39 percent, 0.44 and 0.59 percent respectively.
During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 18 (35.29%) items increased, 09 (17.65%) items decreased and 24 (47.06%) items remained stable.
The items, which recorded a decrease in their average prices on a week-on-week (WoW) basis, included potatoes (13.17%), petrol super (4.97%), diesel (4.68%), tomatoes (3.45%), sugar (1.16%), wheat flour bag (0.33%), chicken (0.13%), rice basmati broken (0.11%) and cooking oil 5 litre (0.07%).
The items that recorded an increase in their average prices on a week-on-week (WoW) basis, eggs (10.42%), firewood whole (1.23%), onions (1.19%), pulse moong (0.88%), pulse gram (0.79%), garlic & rice irri-6/9 (0.40%) each, pulse masoor (0.30%), lpg (0.26%), bananas (0.19%), shirting (0.15%) and georgette (0.13%) On a year-on-year (YoY) basis, the items that witnessed decrease in prices included f onions (23.92%), mustard oil (4.24%), vegetable ghee 1 kg (1.59%), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (0.62%) and bananas (0.06%) The commodities which recorded an increase in their average prices on YoY basis included gas charges for q1 (1108.59%), cigarettes (93.22%), chilies powder (81.74%), wheat flour (78.80%), garlic (72.48%), rice basmati broken (62.52%), rice irri-6/9 (59.45%), gents sponge chappal (58.05%), tomatoes (56.89%), gents sandal (53.37%), sugar (50.33%) and gur (49.86%).