Weekly inflation decreases 0.04% as SPI falls to 372.43 points
Pakistan's Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI)-based weekly inflation fell 0.04 per cent in the week ended October 15, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics reported, with the index easing to 372.43 points from 372.58 a week earlier. On a year-on-year basis the SPI was up 11.38 per cent, a reminder that the weekly softening does little to reverse the cumulative pressure on household budgets.
The decline was broad but shallow across consumption groups. The SPI for the lowest expenditure group, up to Rs 17,732, fell 0.06 per cent to 356.35 points, while the four higher groups recorded decreases of between 0.01 and 0.06 per cent. The index, with a base year of 2015-16, tracks 51 essential items across 17 urban centres.
Of the 51 items, prices rose for 23 (45.10 per cent) and fell for seven (13.72 per cent), with 21 unchanged. Week on week, tomatoes fell 23.05 per cent, onions 4.90 per cent and bananas 2.59 per cent, while petrol slipped 0.70 per cent and sugar 0.62 per cent. Increases were recorded for pulse gram (4.97 per cent), wheat flour (3.36 per cent), chicken (3.31 per cent) and diesel (0.47 per cent).
The year-on-year picture is starker for several staples and utilities. Onions were up 75.19 per cent, LPG 68.95 per cent, electricity for the first quarter 58.59 per cent, petrol 49.60 per cent and diesel 43.98 per cent, according to the bureau's data. Wheat flour rose 35.13 per cent and chicken 20.77 per cent over the year. Tomatoes, by contrast, were down 63.65 per cent year on year, with potatoes 39.93 per cent lower and sugar down 23.20 per cent.
The weekly reading offers limited relief: the items that fell are concentrated in perishable produce, while the year-on-year increases sit in energy and staples that weigh heavily on lower-income households. The bureau's figures cover urban centres only, and the SPI is not a full consumer price index.
