Daily Times

The weekly inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), witnessed an increase of 1.16 percent for the combined consumption groups during the week ended on December, 7, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported on Friday.

The SPI for the week under review in the above-mentioned group was recorded at 311.78 points as compared to 308.20 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 42.68 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 0.17 percent and went down to 306.59 points from last week’s 307.11 points.

The SPI for consumption groups from Rs 17,732-22,888 decreased by 0.14 percent whereas for consumption groups from Rs 22,889-29,517; Rs 29,518-44,175 and above Rs 44,175 it increased by 0.96 percent, 1.27 percent and 1.65 percent respectively.

During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 15 (29.41%) items increased, 14 (27.45%) items decreased and 22 (43.14%) items remained stable. The items, which recorded a decrease in their average prices on a week-on-week (WoW) included tomatoes (9.82%), potatoes (4.34%), chicken (2.99%), tea packet (2.58%), diesel (2.31%), rice basmati broken (2.00%), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (0.43%), cooking oil 5 liter (0.38%), wheat flour (0.35%), pulse gram (0.27%) and vegetable ghee 1 kg (0.16%).

The items that recorded an increase in their average prices on a week-on-week (wow) basis, included onions (8.42%), eggs (2.52%), electricity charges for q1 (2.03%), pulse moong (0.88%), sugar (0.84%), bananas (0.67%), firewood (0.55%), LPG (0.42%), tea prepared (0.37%), pulse masoor (0.10%), mustard oil (0.09%) and curd (0.02%)

On a Year-on-Year (YoY) basis, the items that witnessed decrease in prices included onions (22.59%), tomatoes (6.97%), mustard oil (4.04%), vegetable ghee 1 kg (3.00%), vegetable ghee 2.5kg (1.30%) and bananas (0.01%).

The commodities which recorded an increase in their average prices on YoY basis included gas charges for Q1 (1108.59%), cigarettes (94.20%), wheat flour (85.05%), chilies powder (81.74%), garlic (73.09%), rice basmati broken (68.53%), rice Irri 6/9 (60.94%), gents sponge chappal (58.05%), gents sandal (53.37%), gur (50.56%), tea packet (44.65%) and pulse mash (44.04%).