ISLAMABAD: Weekly inflation for the combined group in the period ended on June 3 fell by 0.61 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.

This will be the second consecutive week when the weekly inflation fell slightly on the back of drop in prices of perishable products. 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 0.47pc, while for those who are earning above Rs44,175 it recorded a decline of 0.55pc.

This was mainly due to a decline in prices of food items including garlic chicken 16.75pc, bananas 9.80pc, pulse moong 1.71pc, wheat flour 0.75pc; rice Irri-6/9 0.73pc, pulse gram 0.14pc and pulse mash 0.12pc.

The items whose prices increased during the week included LPG 19.21pc, tomatoes 9.70pc, garlic 5.51pc, onions 2.78pc, potatoes 2.35pc and eggs 2.07pc.

During the week, 20 items recorded an increase, 7 showed decline and 24 unchanged. This decline might be reflected in the monthly inflation figure for June.

Published in Dawn, June 5th, 2021