Weekly inflation increases by 0.37%, revealing economic instability
Published on: December 30, 2023.
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Inflation Increases by 0.37% for Combined Consumption Groups
The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) has reported that the weekly inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), increased by 0.37 percent for the combined consumption groups during the week ended on December 28. According to the PBS data, the SPI for this week was recorded at 311.14 points compared to 310.00 points the previous week. This reflects a 43.25 percent increase compared to the corresponding week last year. The SPI, which covers 17 urban centers and 51 essential items for all expenditure groups, represents the lowest consumption group up to Rs 17,732, which increased by 0.40 percent to reach 306.04 points from last week’s 304.83 points.
Item Prices Impact SPI
Out of the 51 items tracked, the prices of 15 items increased while 9 items decreased during the week. Among the items that recorded decreasing average prices on a week-on-week (WoW) basis were potatoes (8.66 percent), tomatoes (1.01 percent), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (0.61 percent), cooking oil 5 liters (0.44 percent), eggs (0.40 percent), mustard oil (0.24 percent), gurr (0.19 percent), and garlic (0.15 percent).
On the other hand, onions saw a significant increase of 15.21 percent, along with chicken (4.76 percent), pulse moong (2.90 percent), pulse gram (2.89 percent), sugar (1.35 percent), bananas (1.05 percent), pulse masoor (0.78 percent), and pulse mash (0.54 percent).
Year-on-Year Price Changes
Comparing prices on a year-on-year (YoY) basis, onions witnessed a decrease of 12.57 percent, followed by mustard oil (5.16 percent), vegetable ghee 1 kg (1.14 percent), and bananas (0.20 percent). However, several commodities saw an increase in their average prices on a YoY basis, including gas charges for Q1 (1108.59 percent), cigarettes (93.22 percent), chilies powder (81.74 percent), wheat flour bag (73.81 percent), garlic (70.67 percent), tomatoes (65.26 percent), rice irri-6/9 (58.49 percent), rice basmati broken (58.47 percent), gents sponge chappal (58.05 percent), and sugar (54.25 percent).
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Source: Nation
