ISLAMABAD: The weekly inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), recorded a decline of 0.12 percent for the combined consumption groups during the week ended on August 1st, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported on Friday.
According to the PBS data, the SPI for the week under review in the above mentioned group was witnessed at 321.56 points as compared to 321.95 points during the previous week.
While comparing to the corresponding week of last year, the SPI for the combined consumption group in the week under review registered an increase of 18.41 percent.
The weekly SPI with the base year 2015-16 =100 covers 17 urban centres and 51 basic items for all expenditure groups.
The SPI for the lowest consumption group of up to Rs 17,732, dropped by 0.90 percent and went down to 309.40 points from previous week’s 312.22 points.
The SPI for the lowest consumption groups of Rs 17,732-22,888, Rs 22,889-29,517; Rs 29,518-44,175 and above Rs 44,175 reduced by 1.36 percent, 0.17 percent, 0.23 and 0.80 percent respectively.
During the week, out of 51 commodities, prices of 24 (47.06%) items raised, 7 (13.72%) items reduced and 20 (39.22%) items remained stable.
The items, which witnessed major decrease in their average prices on a week-on-week basis included electricity charges for Q1 (15.80%), diesel (3.81%), bananas (4.87%), petrol (2.23%), wheat flour (0.98%) sugar (0.21%) and cigarettes (0.21%).
The items which witnessed major increase in their average prices on week-on-week basis included chicken (5.91%), eggs (1.58%), pulse gram (0.78%), cooked daal (1.05%), cooked beef (0.53%), garlic (0.43%), rice basmati broken (0.44%), onions (0.40%), shirting (0.09%) and LPG (0.06%).
On-year basis, the commodities that saw decrease included wheat flour (32.28%), cooking oil 5 litre (13.44%), electricity charges for q1 (15.46%), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (9.99%), vegetable ghee 1 kg (9.21%), eggs (7.90%), mustard oil (6.80%), rice basmati broken (5.68%), chili powder (7.04%), petrol (1.20%) and diesel (0.16%).
The items which recorded an increase in their average prices on year-on-year basis included gas charges for Q1 (570.00%), pulse gram (41.78%), onions (86.53%), powered milk (32.32%), garlic (27.88%), pulse moong (30.21%), shirting (25.09%), salt powder (23.28%), gents sandal (25.01%), beef (23.13%), pulse mash (21.22%) and energy saver (17.96%).
