News Desk
ISLAMABAD: The weekly inflation, measured by SPI (Sensitive Price Indicator), witnessed a decrease of 0.30% for the combined consumption group during the week ended on 2 March, the data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) showed on Friday.
The SPI for the week under review was recorded at 240.57 points in comparison to 241.29 points during the previous week.
As compared to the same period last year, the SPI witnessed an increase of 41.07%.
The weekly SPI covers seventeen urban centers and fifty-one essential items for all groups of expenditure.
The SPI for the lowest consumption category, up to 17,732 rupees, witnessed a 0.08% decrease and fell to 244.94 points from the previous week’s 245.14 points.
Inflation in necessary commodities
The items which recorded a fall in their average rates on a week-on-week basis included onions (13.24 percent), eggs (6.11 percent), garlic (4.24 percent), chicken (2.00 percent), tomatoes (0.59 percent), pulse gram (0.38 percent) and potatoes (0.33 percent), non-food items, LPG (1.84 percent) and petrol (1.80 percent).
The items which recorded a surge included bananas (7.34 percent), long cloth (3.44 percent), energy saver (3.33 percent), vegetable ghee 1 kg (2.48 percent), gur (2.03 percent), cooked daal (1.87 percent), tea packet (1.79 percent), matchbox (1.66 percent), lawn printed (1.52 percent), cooking oil 5 litre (1.45 percent) and sugar (1.07 percent).
On a year-on-year basis, the items which recorded a fall in their average prices included tomatoes (56.29 percent), powdered chilies (7.42 percent), and electricity charges for q1 (6.64 percent).
The items that witnessed a surge in prices on a Year-on-Year basis included onions (311.17 percent), cigarettes (165.86 percent), gas charges for Q1 (108.38 percent), diesel (93.82 percent), petrol (77.89 percent), eggs (77.83 percent), rice (76.96 percent), rice basmati broken (75.55 percent), pulse moong (73.30 percent), bananas (72.66 percent), chicken (64.70 percent) and tea packet (64.53 percent).
