Weekly Inflation Remains Over 40% for Fifth Consecutive Week

The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) based weekly inflation for the week ended on September witnessed a decrease of 0.19 percent as compared to the previous week, says Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS). The year-on-year trend depicts an increase of 40.58 percent, down around 5 percent from the all-time high of 45.50 percent recorded earlier in the month. This was the fifth consecutive week where the year-on-year increase remained over 40 percent. This was mainly due to an increase in prices of Tomatoes (170.51 percent), Diesel (105.12 percent), Petrol (90.73 percent), Pulse Masoor (76.65 percent), Pulse Gram (67.11 percent), Mustard Oil (65.75 percent), Cooking Oil 5 litre (65.45 percent), Washing Soap (61.05 percent), Vegetable Ghee 2.5 Kg (60.68 percent), LPG (56.61 percent), Vegetable Ghee 1 Kg (56.46 percent), Pulse Mash (53.41 percent) and Electricity for Q1 (52.04 percent), while decrease observed in the prices of Chillies Powder (43.05 percent), Sugar (19.83 percent) and Gur (2.50 percent On a year-on-year basis, the commodities that witnessed a decrease in prices included chillies powder (43.05 percent), sugar (19.83 percent), and gur (2.50 percent). The SPI for the week under review was recorded at 221.14 points against 221.55 points registered in the previous week. The Sensitive Price Indicator for the lowest consumption group up to Rs 17,732 witnessed a 0.31 percent decrease and went down from 225.67 points last week to 224.98 points during the week under review. Meanwhile, the SPI for the consumption groups from Rs. 17,732-22,888, Rs. 22,889-29,517, Rs. 29,518-44,175 and above Rs. 44,175 decreased by 0.22 percent, 0.16 percent, 0.15 percent and 0.19 percent respectively. During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 30 (58.82 percent) items increased, 10 (19.61 percent) items decreased and 11 (21.57 percent) items remained stable. The items, which recorded a decrease in their average prices on a week-on-week (WoW) basis included onions (16.24 percent), tomatoes (9.84 percent), bananas (2.50 percent), chicken (1.88 percent), sugar (0.95 percent), vegetable ghee 1kg (0.39 percent), potatoes (0.33 percent), vegetable ghee 2.5kg (0.23 percent), cooking oil 5 litre (0.10 percent) and LPG (2.62 percent). The commodities, which recorded an increase in their average prices included tea packet (6.30 percent), pulse moong (3.46 percent), eggs (2.54 percent), cooked beef & pulse gram (2.53 percent) each, wheat flour (1.96 percent), rice irri 6/9 (1.73 percent), cooked daal (1.71 percent), pulse mash (1.68 percent) and bread (1.45 percent).