Weekly inflation up by 0.34pc: PBS report
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Weekly inflation up by 0.34pc: PBS report
ISLAMABAD (APP) – The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported on Friday that the weekly inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), witnessed an increase of 0.34 percent for the combined consumption groups during the week ending Jan 18.
According to PBS data, the SPI for the week under review in the mentioned group was recorded at 319 points, compared to 317.92 points during the previous week. In comparison to the corresponding week of the previous year, the SPI for the combined consumption group in the current week experienced a significant increase of 44.64 percent.
The weekly SPI, with the base year 2015-16 =100, covers 17 urban centres and 51 essential items for all expenditure groups. Notably, the SPI for the lowest consumption group, up to Rs17,732 increased by 0.61 percent, rising to 314.12 points from the previous week's 312.23 points.
For consumption groups ranging from Rs17,732-22,888, Rs22,889-29,517; Rs29,518-44,175, and above Rs44,175, the SPI increased by 0.54 percent, 0.46 percent, 0.40 percent and 0.23 percent, respectively.
Throughout the week, out of 51 items, prices of 22 items (43.14%) increased, while 8 items (15.68%) decreased, and 21 items (41.18%) remained stable.
Items that experienced a decrease in their average prices on a week-on-week basis included potatoes (3.85%), petrol (2.99%), sugar (0.90%), tea packet (0.20%), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (0.14%), cooking oil five-litre (0.08%), wheat flour (0.07%), and gur (0.04%).
On the other hand, items that saw an increase in their average prices on a week-on-week basis included onions (8.69%), tomatoes (7.51%), energy sever (2.72%), chicken (2.26%), garlic (2.18%), bananas (2.14%), eggs (1.89%), matchbox (1.67%), pulse mash (1.59%), and pulse moong (1.46%).
On a year-on-year basis, items that experienced a decrease in prices included mustard oil (6.86%), bananas (2.39%), onions (2.00%) and vegetable ghee 1 kg (1.17%).
Commodities that recorded an increase in their average prices on a year-on-year basis included gas charges for Q1 (1108.59%), tomatoes (183.16%), cigarettes (93.22%), chillies powder (81.74%), wheat flour (65.03%), garlic (60.45%), gents sponge chappal (58.05%), sugar (57.26%), gents sandal (53.37%), rice irri-6/9 (49.95%), gur (49.45%), and eggs (47.54%).