Weekly inflation dips marginally

Weekly inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), witnessed a nominal decrease of 0.07 per cent for the combined consumption group during the week that ended on July 20, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported on Friday.

The SPI for the week under review in the above-mentioned group was recorded at 258.45 points as compared to 258.63 points during the last 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 29.16 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 up to Rs17,732 increased by 0.51 per cent and went up to 267.24 points from last week’s 265.88 points.

The SPI for consumption groups from Rs17,732-22,888, Rs22,889-29,517 and Rs29,518-44,175; however, increased by 0.35 per cent, 0.20 per cent and 0.03 per cent, respectively, while it declined by 0.28 per cent for consumption group above Rs44,175.

During the week, of 51 items, prices of 30 (58.82 per cent) items increased, nine (17.65 per cent) decreased and 12 (23.53 per cent) remained stable.

The items that recorded a decrease in their average prices on a week-on-week basis included onions (10.29 per cent), chicken (8.57 per cent), bananas (8.34 per cent), wheat flour (0.98 per cent), vegetable ghee 1kg (0.49 per cent), vegetable ghee 2.5kg (0.39 per cent), cooking oil five litres (0.30 per cent), petrol (3.40 per cent) and diesel (2.64 per cent).

The items that recorded an increase in their average prices included tomatoes (36.06 per cent), chilli powder (20.17 per cent), sugar (4.77 per cent), eggs (4.70 per cent), jaggery (3.66 per cent), shirting (2.64 per cent) and garlic (2.31 per cent).

The commodities that witnessed a decrease in price on a year-on-year (YOY) basis included onions (35.27 per cent), electricity for Q1 (14.58 per cent), pulse masoor (8.08 per cent), LPG (1.06 per cent) and vegetable ghee 1kg (0.51 per cent).

The commodities that recorded an increase in their average prices included wheat flour (126.82 per cent), cigarettes (110.75 per cent), gas charges for Q1 (108.38 per cent), tea packet (98.99 per cent), rice basmati broken (79.37 per cent), rice irri-6/9 (74.14 per cent), sugar (66.18 per cent), potatoes (60.32 per cent), gents sponge chappal (58.05 per cent), tomatoes (57.58 per cent), jaggery (54.21 per cent), salt powdered (53.83 per cent) and bread (46.93 per cent).