Weekly inflation remains largely stable

September 13, 2024 (MLN): Pakistan's short-term inflation edged up by 0.01% WoW during the week ended September 12, 2024, while the annual increase was 14.36%, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported on Friday.

PBS calculates short-term inflation using the sensitive price indicator (SPI) on a weekly basis to assess the price movement of essential commodities at shorter interval of time so as to review the price situation in the country.

SPI comprises of 51 essential items collected from 50 markets in 17 cities of the country. During the week, out of these items, prices of 15 (29.41%) items increased, 14 (27.45%) items decreased and 22 (43.14%) items remained stable.

On a weekly basis, major increase was observed in the prices of Tomatoes (6.62%), Electricity Charges for Q1 (4.13%), Chicken (3.77%), Pulse Gram (2.43%), and Garlic (2.24%).

On the other hand, a major decrease was observed in the prices of Bananas (6.04%), Pulse Mash (1.33%), Wheat Flour (0.97%), LPG (0.96%), and Eggs (0.91%).

The weekly SPI percentage change by income groups showed that SPI increased across 3 quantiles while it decreased across 2 quantiles, ranging between -0.3% and 0.69%.

The lowest income group experienced a weekly rise of 0.58%, while the highest income group experienced a fall of 0.3%.

On a yearly basis, analysis of SPI change across different income segments showed that SPI increased across all quantiles ranging between 9.65% and 17.15%.

Yearly SPI for the Lowest Income Group increased by 9.65% while the highest income group recorded an increase of 13.09%.

The average price of Sona urea stood at Rs4,667 per 50 kg bag which is 0.35% lower than last week’s price, while 20.82% higher when compared to last year.

Meanwhile, the average Cement price rose to Rs1,475 per 50 kg bag, which is 0.16% lower than the previous week and 23.56% higher than prices last year.

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