Weekly inflation eases by 0.16% to 218.5%

ISLAMABAD: The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) based weekly inflation for the week ended on December 1st for the combined consumption group witnessed a decrease of 0.16 percent as compared to the previous week.

The SPI for the week under review in the above-mentioned group was recorded at 218.51 points against 218.87 points registered in the previous week, according to the latest data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) here on Friday.

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 30.56 percent.

The weekly SPI with base year 2015-16 =100 is covering 17 urban centres and 51 essential items for all expenditure groups. The SPI for the lowest consumption group up to Rs 17,732 witnessed 0.34 percent decrease and went down to 227.45 points from last week’s 228.23 points.

Meanwhile, the SPI for the consumption groups from Rs 17,732-22,888; Rs 22,889-29,517; Rs 29,518-44,175 and above Rs 44,175 witnessed decrease of 0.30 percent, 0.24 percent, 0.18 percent and 0.10 percent respectively. During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 23 (45.10%) items increased, 10 (19.61%) items decreased and 18 (35.29%) items remained stable.

The items which recorded decrease in their average prices on a week-on-week (WoW) basis included tomatoes (12.26%), onions (2.79%), chicken (1.71%), pulse gram (0.68%), pulse masoor (0.64%), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (0.38%), vegetable ghee 1 kg (0.12%), cooking oil 5 litre (0.11%), gur (0.11%) and LPG (0.42%).

The commodities which recorded increase in their average prices included f bananas (3.36%), tea packet (1.72%), potatoes (1.65%), match box *1.32%), salt powdered (1.32%) and rice irri-6/9 (1.23%). On a year-on-year (YoY) basis, the commodities that witnessed a decrease in prices included chillies powdered (40.90%), gur (5.35%) and electricity for Q1 (2.67%).

The commodities that witnessed increase in prices on YOY basis included onions (388.52%), tomatoes (73.25%), diesel (64.57%), tea packet (62.61%), salt powdered (55.29%), petrol (53.85%), pulse gram (52.71%), gents sponge chappal (52.21%), bananas (52.02%), eggs (51.87%), pulse moong (47.67%), pulse mash (43.44%) and mustard oil (42.51%). – Agencies