ISLAMABAD
The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) based inflation snapped a three-week rising streak and fell by 1.70 percent for the week ended on October 19.
According to the data released by Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Friday, inflation on a year-on-year basis increased to 35.45 percent during the week.
The inflation for the week ended on October 12 for the lowest income group (Q1) witnessed a decrease of -0.88 percent, while it went up by 34.96 percent on a year-on-year (YoY) basis for the same group. For the other four income groups, the weekly inflation decreased from -1.13 percent (Q2) to -2.02 percent (Q5), while it went down from 31.19 percent (Q5) to 37.79 percent (Q2) on a year-on-year (YoY) basis.
According to the PBS, the combined index was at 278.04 on October 19, 2023 as compared to 282.86 on October 12, 2023 while the index was recorded at 205.27 a year ago on October 20, 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 14 (27.45%) items increased, prices of 24 (47.06%) items decreased, and prices of 13 (25.49%) items remained stable.
The SPI for the current week recorded a decrease in the prices of food items, including onions (8.45%), chicken (5.46%), pulse Masoor (3.38%), sugar (3.07%), garlic (2.24%), rice basmati broken (2.17%), gur (2.17%), bananas (1.56 %), and non-food item including petrol (12.31%), diesel (4.68%) and LPG (1.17%).
On the other hand, a major increase was observed in the prices of eggs (3.44%), salt powdered (2.63%), shirting (2.18%), mutton (1.01%), beef (0.84%), cooked beef (0.72%), georgette (0.52%), washing soap (0.48%), tea prepared (0.34%), cooked Daal (0.34%), potatoes (0.25%) and firewood Whole (0.22%).
According to the PBS data, the year-on-year trend depicts an increase of 35.45 percent, including electricity charges for Q1 (136.89%), gas charges for Q1 (108.38%), cigarettes (94.46%), chilies powder (84.11%), rice basmati broken (81.74%), wheat flour (80.73%), rice Irri-6/9 (71.43%), sugar (66.29%), gur (61.50%), gents sponge Chappal (58.05%), salt powdered (57.40%) and tea Lipton (56.27%)
On a year-on-year basis, a major decrease was observed in the prices of tomatoes (45.75%), onions (23.76%), pulse gram (5.63%), mustard oil (2.12%) and vegetable ghee (0.62%).
