Business
Inflation plunged by 0.19 percent
Islamabad: Inflation has declined by 0.19 per cent in one week, the overall inflation rate was recorded at 13.21 per cent, prices of 22 commodities have increased in one week, prices of 9 commodities have declined and prices of 20 commodities have remained stable.
According to the Bureau of Statistics, SPI for the current week ended on 18th March 2021 recorded a decrease in the prices of Food items i.e. Chicken (6.63%), Garlic (4.00%), Onions (3.67%), Pulse Gram (0.55%), Pulse Masoor (0.52%), Pulse Moong (0.32%), Rice Basmati Broken (0.21%) and Milk Fresh (0.17%) and among non-food items LPG (0.67%) with the joint impact of (-0.43%) into the overall SPI for the combined group of (-0.19%).
On the other hand, an increase was observed in the prices of Tomatoes (24.55%), Shirting (3.14%), Bananas (2.54%), Red Chilies Powdered (1.81%), Lawn Printed (1.59%), Eggs (1.27%) and Potatoes (1.16%).
During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 22 (43.14%) items increased, 09 (17.65%) items decreased and 20 (39.22%) items remained constant.
The year on year trend depicts an increase of 13.48% with most of the items increased mainly Chilies Powder (139.64%), Electricity for Q1 (69.19%), Eggs (66.97%), Chicken (48.51%), Gents Sandal (33.37%), Match Box (30.47%), Mustard Oil (28.56%), Gents Sponge Chappal (25.13%), Washing Soap (21.41%), Sugar (20.54%) and Long Cloth (19.58%) While a major decrease was observed in the price of Onions (48.35%), Garlic (38.42%), LPG (15.42%), Potatoes (10.97%), Diesel (4.98%) and Tomatoes (3.55%).
Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) is computed on weekly basis to assess the price movements of essential commodities at a shorter interval of time to review the price situation in the country.