Pakistan's weekly inflation jumps 0.37%

The weekly inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), witnessed an increase of 0.37 percent for the combined consumption groups during the week ended on December 28, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported on Friday.

The SPI for the week under review in the above-mentioned group was recorded at 311.14 points as compared to 310.00 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 43.25 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, increased by 0.40 percent and went up to 306.04 points from last week’s 304.83 points. The SPI for consumption groups from Rs 17,732-22,888, Rs 22,889-29,517; Rs 29,518-44,175 and above Rs 44,175 it increased by 0.41 percent, 0.38 percent, 0.39 percent, and 0.35 percent, respectively.

During the week, out of 51 items, the prices of 15 (29.41 percent) items increased, 09 (17.65 percent) items decreased, and 27 (52.94 percent) items remained stable.

The items that recorded a decrease in their average prices on a week-on-week basis (WoW) included potatoes (8.66 percent), tomatoes (1.01 percent), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (0.61 percent), cooking oil 5 litre (0.44 percent), eggs (0.40 percent), mustard oil (0.24 percent), gurr (0.19 percent), and garlic (0.15 percent).

The items that recorded an increase in their average prices on a week-on-week (wow) basis included onions (15.21%), chicken (4.76%), pulse moong (2.90%), pulse gram (2.89%), sugar (1.35%), bananas (1.05%), pulse masoor (0.78%), and pulse mash (0.54%).

On a Year-on-Year (YoY) basis, the items that witnessed a decrease in prices included onions (12.57%), mustard oil (5.16%), 1 kg of vegetable ghee (1.14%), and bananas (0.20%).

The commodities that recorded an increase in their average prices on a year-over-year basis included gas charges for Q1 (1108.59%), cigarettes (93.22%), chili powder (81.74%), wheat flour bag (73.81%), garlic (70.67%), tomatoes (65.26%), rice irri-6/9 (58.49%), rice basmati broken (58.47%), gents sponge chappal (58.05%), and sugar (54.25%).