Weekly inflation slows to 14pc

ISLAMABAD: Short-term inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Index (SPI), eased to 14.07 per cent year-on-year in the week ending on Sept due to a decline in eatables and petrol, official data showed on Friday.

It fell by 0.15pc week-on-week.

The deceleration is mainly caused by a drop in essential food products like wheat and last year’s high base effect.

A downturn in petrol prices in the last three weeks has led to a decrease in the prices of perishable goods.

The weekly inflation hit a record 48.35pc year-on-year in early May 2023, but then decelerated as low as 24.4pc in late Aug 2023 before surging past 40pc during the week ending on Nov 16, 2023.

The items whose prices saw the decline week-on-week included tomatoes (14.54pc), chicken (1.55pc), wheat flour (1.31pc), chillies powder (1.30pc), diesel (1.23pc), petrol (0.68pc), pulse masoor (0.59pc), sugar (0.54pc), pulse mash (0.49pc) and cooking oil 5 litre (0.41pc).

The items whose prices increased the most over the previous week included onions (3.83pc), pulse gram (1.65pc), garlic (1.38pc), LPG (0.90pc), cooked daal & cooked beef (0.70pc) each, eggs (0.54pc), potatoes (0.50pc), rice basmati broken (0.34pc) and georgette (0.14pc).

However, on an annual basis, the items whose prices increased the most included gas charges for Q1 (570pc), onions (95.92pc), pulse gram (51.20pc), powdered milk (26.15pc), beef (23.88pc), shirting (23.44pc), garlic (21.81pc), pulse moong (19.68pc), salt powder (19.15pc), cooked daal (15.21pc), georgette (14.01pc) and energy saver (12.87pc).

In contrast, the prices of wheat flour dropped 37.69pc followed by sugar (21.79pc), chillies powder (20pc), electricity charges for Q1 (16.91pc), diesel (15.64pc), petrol (15.03pc), cooking oil 5-litre (10.77pc), rice basmati broken (9.52pc), gur (7.92pc), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (6.80pc), vegetable ghee 1 kg (6pc) and washing soap (0.92pc).

Published in Dawn, September 7th, 2024