Weekly inflation slips 0.09%

KARACHI: Weekly inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), recorded a slight decline of 0.09 per cent for the week ending March 6, 2025, according to data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Friday. The drop was mainly driven by lower prices of essential food items and fuel.

The SPI, which tracks the prices of 51 key consumer goods across 17 cities, showed that out of these items, 20 registered price decreases, 13 recorded increases, while 18 remained unchanged.

A significant drop in food prices contributed to the overall decrease in inflation. The sharpest declines were seen in onions (down 5.59 per cent), Lipton tea (4.47 per cent), garlic (3.89 per cent), tomatoes (3.6 per cent), pulse gram (3.49 per cent), pulse mash (2.82 per cent), potatoes (2.6 per cent), and pulse masoor (1.5 per cent).

Diesel prices also saw a slight dip of 2.0 per cent and petrol went down 0.24 per cent. Despite the overall decline, some essential commodities registered price hikes. Bananas saw the largest increase, surging 9.79 per cent week-on-week (WoW). Sugar prices rose 3.15 per cent, followed by LPG (2.64 per cent), eggs (2.52 per cent), mutton (0.33 per cent), and wheat flour (0.22 per cent). Prices of long cloth and gur each increased by 0.17 per cent, while cigarettes and beef saw marginal upticks of 0.06 per cent.

On a year-on-year (YoY) basis, the SPI dropped by 0.87 per cent, driven by a sharp decline in prices of several food staples. The most notable decreases were observed in onions (down 64.92 per cent), tomatoes (57.05 per cent), wheat flour (36.81 per cent), chilies powder (20.00 per cent), electricity charges for the first quarter (18.92 per cent), tea (14.92 per cent), pulse mash (14.68 per cent), pulse masoor (12.33 per cent), diesel (9.91 per cent), rice basmati broken (9.55 per cent), petrol (8.55 per cent) and LPG (2.54 per cent).

In contrast, some items experienced steep year-on-year price increases. The most significant rise was in ladies’ sandals, which surged by 75.09 per cent. Other notable price hikes were recorded in bananas (30.96 per cent), pulse moong (26.90 per cent), powdered milk (25.86 per cent), beef (22.51 per cent), pulse gram (21.73 per cent), vegetable ghee (16.12 per cent for the 1 kg pack and 14.32 per cent for the 2.5 kg pack), shirting fabric (14.13 per cent), eggs (13.52 per cent), firewood (11.07 per cent), and georgette fabric (10.89 per cent).

The weekly inflation trend varied across different income groups. The lowest income quintile saw the sharpest decline of 0.20 per cent, while the highest income group experienced a marginal drop of 0.03 per cent. On a year-on-year basis, the lowest expenditure group saw a significant decline of 2.47 per cent, whereas the highest income group registered a slight increase of 0.24 per cent.