ISLAMABAD, July 6: Drop in fuel prices helped the weekly inflation to decline for all income groups during the week ending on July 5, 2012, with the high income group being the main beneficiary.

The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) for the said week declined by 2.73 per cent for the combined income groups.

However, for the high income group earning above Rs35,000 per month, it decreased by 5.82 per cent against the previous week, data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) stated on Friday.

The SPI for income groups ranging from 18,001-35,000 witnessed a drop of 3.49 per cent while for the income group earning between Rs12,001 and Rs18,000 per month the SPI inched down by 0.14 per cent and for the income group, the weekly inflation dropped by 0.30 per cent.

However, the least impact of declining inflation had been on the lowest income group earning up to Rs8,000 per month ie 0.16 per cent as compared to the previous week.

The SPI for the lowest income group up to Rs8,000 declined from 178.02 points last week to 177.73 points during the week under review.

Analysts said that overall SPI decrease is mainly due to fuel prices announced by the government at the start of the month.

“But the major beneficiary has been the high income group due to lifestyle difference as well off people spend more on fuel compared to low income groups,” said an economist at the Planning Commission,

During the week under review, average prices of 14 items registered decrease, which includes natural gas, petrol, diesel, kerosene oil, diesel, LPG, tea, masoor pulses (washed), bananas, gram pulses (washed), mash pulses (washed), moong pulses, vegetable ghee, wheat and wheat flour. While prices of 21 items increased which are tomatoes, onions, chicken live (farm), potatoes, gur, cigarettes, egg (farm), cooking oil (ton), lawn, milk fresh, vegetable ghee (tin), mustard oil, crude, milk powder, washing soap, red chillies powder, mutton, fire wood, rice basmati (broken), and sugar.

The prices of 18 items remained unchanged during the week, including rice irri-6, bread plain, beef, salt powder, cooked beef (plate), cooked dal (plate), tea prepared (cup), long cloth, shirting, georgette, sandal gents, sandal ladies, electric charges, energy savors, match box, telephone call and bath soap.The weekly SPI is computed from prices of 53 essential items for all income groups and combined collected at 17 urban centres.