ISLAMABAD: Weekly inflation for the combined group in the period ended on March 18 fell by 0.19 per cent on the back of a slight decline in prices of essential food items, data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Friday showed.

The week-on-week fall in inflation was noticed for the second consecutive week owing to a drop in prices of nine essential kitchen items. Since January, an upward movement in the prices of essential kitchen items were noted despite the government’s claims that rates of consumer items were declining.

The PBS calculates the Sensitive Price Index (SPI) based on the prices of 51 essential items from 50 markets across 17 cities of the country.

For the lowest income group earning below Rs17,732 per month, the SPI decreased by 0.05pc. For the group earning above Rs44,175, SPI recorded a decline of 0.22pc.

This was mainly due to a decline in prices of food items including chicken which went down 6.63pc, followed by garlic 4pc, onions 3.67pc, pulse gram 0.55pc, pulse masoor 0.52pc, pulse moong 0.32pc, rice basmati broken 0.21pc and milk fresh 0.17pc.

Among non-food items, prices of LPG lowered 0.67pc.

The items whose prices increased during the week included tomatoes which recorded a hike of 24.55pc. Prices of bananas went up 2.54pc, followed by red chilies powder 1.81pc, eggs 1.27pc and potatoes 1.16pc. Among non-food items, the price of printed lawn and shirting rose by 1.59pc and 3.14pc, respectively.

Published in Dawn, March 20th, 2021