Weekly Inflation Clocks in at 28.76% Due to Soaring Food Prices

The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) based inflation for the week ended December 22, recorded a decrease of 0.11 percent due to decline in the prices of food and non-food items, says the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS). The year-on-year trend depicts an increase of 28.76 percent mainly due to increase in the prices of onions (482.30 percent), chicken (67.42 percent), tea lipton (65.41 percent), diesel (65.05 percent), petrol (52.19 percent), salt powdered (51.99 percent), bananas (47.95 percent), pulse moong (47.13 percent), eggs (47.07 percent), pulse gram (45.24 percent) and mustard oil (40.97 percent), while decrease is observed in the prices of chillies powdered (37.98 percent), tomatoes (13.67 percent), electricity for q1 (11.81 percent) and gur (2.32 percent). The SPI for the week under review in the above mentioned group was recorded at 217.39 points against 217.64 points registered in the previous week, according to the latest PBS data released on Friday. During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 20 (39.22 percent) items increased, 14 (27.45 percent) items decreased and 17 (33.33 percent) items remained stable. The SPI for the consumption group up to Rs. 17,732, Rs. 17,732-22,888 and above Rs. 44,175 decreased by 0.4 percent, 0.01 percent and 0.21 percent respectively while it increased for Rs. 22,889-29,517 by 0.02 percent and remained unchanged for the consumption group Rs. 29,518-44,175. The items, which recorded increase in their average prices during the week over previous include chicken (9.86 percent), pulse masoor (2 percent), tea lipton yellow label 190 gm packet each (1.72 percent), rice irri-6/9 (1.15 percent), wheat flour bag 20 kg (1.12 percent), rice basmati broken (0.98 percent), pulse mash (0.87 percent), pulse gram (0.68 percent), cooked beef (0.57 percent), curd (0.52 percent), cooked daal (0.50 percent), tea prepared (0.43 percent), milk fresh (0.40 percent), mutton (0.39 percent), gur (0.37 percent), pulse moong (0.36 percent), energy saver (0.35 percent), long cloth 57″ gul ahmed/al karam (0.33 percent), firewood whole 40 kg (0.06 percent) and powdered milk nido (0.05 percent). The commodities, which recorded a decrease in their average prices included tomatoes (23.85 percent), potatoes (10.53 percent), petrol super (4.45 percent), hi-speed diesel (3.20 percent), eggs (1.54 percent), sugar (1.04 percent), bananas (0.80 percent), vegetable ghee dalda/habib or other superior quality 1 kg pouch each (0.53 percent), onions (0.39 percent), garlic (0.35 percent), LPG (0.23 percent), vegetable ghee dalda/habib 2.5 kg tin each (0.22 percent), mustard oil (0.08 percent) and cooking oil dalda or other similar brand (sn), 5 litre tin each (0.05 percent).