ISLAMABAD
The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) based inflation decreased by 0.25 percent for the week ended on September 14 for the first time after surging for seven straight weeks.
According to the data released by Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Friday, inflation on a year-on-year basis decreased to 26.25 percent from 26.32 percent recorded a week earlier.
Prior to this decrease, the weekly inflation surged by 0.96 percent, 0.54 percent, 0.05 percent, 0.78 percent, 0.69 percent, 1.3 percent and 3.73 percent in the preceding seven weeks. The inflation for the week ended on September 14 for the lowest income group (Q1) witnessed an increase of -0.21 percent, while it went up by 26.53 percent on a year-on-year (YoY) basis for the same group.
For the other four income groups, the weekly inflation increased from -0.23 percent (Q2) to 0.27 percent (Q4 and Q5), while it went up from 23.84 percent (Q2) to 29.27 percent (Q4) on a year-on-year (YoY) basis.
According to the PBS, the combined index was at 279.18 on September 14, 2023 as compared to 279.87 on September 07, 2023 while the index was recorded at 221.14 a year ago on September 15, 2022.
The SPI is computed on a weekly basis to assess the price movements of essential commodities at a shorter interval of time so as to review the price situation in the country. The SPI with base 2015-16=100 comprises 51 essential items and the prices are being collected from 50 markets in 17 cities of the country for all expenditure groups/quintiles and combined.
During the week under review, out of 51 items, prices of 24 (47.06 percent) items increased, prices of 08 (15.69 percent) items decreased, and prices of 19 (37.25 percent) items remained stable.
The SPI for the current week recorded an increase in the prices of food items, including tomatoes (4.29%), garlic (4.21%), bread (3.92%), onions (3.60%), pulse Masoor (3.19%), salt powdered (2.77%), shirting (1.68%), pulse Moong (1.66%), lawn printed (1.32%), pulse Mash (1.25%), and long cloth (1.18%).
On the other hand, a decrease was observed in the prices of sugar (9.11%), chicken (5.47%), eggs (2.79%), bananas (0.86%), tea Lipton (0.59%), pulse gram (0.57%), vegetable ghee 1-kg (0.16%) and cooking oil 5-litre (0.10%).
According to the PBS data, the year-on-year trend depicts an increase of 26.25 percent, including wheat flour (114.37%), gas charges for Q1 (108.38%), cigarettes (98.11%), rice Basmati broken (91.07%), sugar (90.27%), chilies powder (84.84%), rice IRRI-6/9 (82.03%), tea Lipton (76.19%), gur (73.95%), gents sponge Chappal (58.05%), salt powdered (55.08%), gents sandal (53.37%), bread (45.79%) and powdered milk (43.05%),
On a year-on-year basis, a major decrease was observed in the prices of tomatoes (24.55%), electricity for Q1 (21.96%), onion (5.31%) and pulse gram (0.26%).
