The weekly inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), recorded a decrease of 1.34 percent for the combined consumption group during the week ended on September 18, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported on Friday.
The SPI for the week under review in the above-mentioned group was recorded at 330.84 points against 335.35 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 4.17 percent. 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 of up to Rs17,732 decreased by 1.43 percent, going down to 322.71 points from last week’s 327.39 points.
The SPI for consumption groups of Rs17,733-22,888; Rs22,889-29,517; Rs29,518-44,175 and above Rs44,175 also decreased by 1.59 percent, 1.34 percent, 1.31 percent and 1.23 percent respectively.
During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 18 (35.29 percent) items increased, 14 (27.45 percent) items decreased and 19 (37.26 percent) items remained stable.
The commodities which recorded major decrease in their average prices on a week-on-week basis included tomatoes (23.11%), chicken (12.74%), electricity charges for Q1 (6.21%), bananas (5.07%), wheat flour (2.60%), onions (1.17%), pulse masoor (0.64%), pulse gram (0.47%) and garlic (0.46%). The items which recorded major increase in their average prices on a week-on-week basis included diesel (1.06%), eggs (0.91%), rice basmati broken (0.84%), georgette (0.83%), rice IRRI-6/9 (0.78%), firewood (0.59%), beef (0.42%), mutton (0.31%), cooked beef (0.31%), vegetable ghee 1kg (0.25%), energy saver (0.23%) and pulse moong (0.10%).
On year-on-years basis, the commodities which recorded decrease in their average prices on year-on-year basis included onions (38.23%), garlic (27.50%), electricity charges for Q1 (26.26%), pulse gram (21.45%), pulse mash (20.95%), tea (17.93%), potatoes (15.20%), chicken (11.06%) and pulse masoor (5.29%).
On year-on-year basis, the commodities that witnessed an increase in prices included ladies sandal (55.62%), tomatoes (49.02%), sugar (30.17%), gas charges for Q1 (29.85%), pulse moong (15.79%), wheat flour (15.70%), firewood (12.40%), gur (12.36%), beef (12.31%), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (11.26%), vegetable ghee 1 kg (11.09%) and diesel (9.51%).