ISLAMABAD: Despite the government s tall claims, the overall SPI based weekly inflation for the week ended on September 9 recorded an increase of 1.37 percent for the 12th consecutive week.
According to the Bureau of Statistics, inflation rose to 1.37 per cent in one week, taking the country s overall inflation rate to 13.64 per cent, while for low-income earners it reached 17.20 per cent.
According to the report, prices of 24 items increased and prices of 5 items decreased in one week while 22 items remained stable. A 20 kg bag of flour became more expensive by an average of Rs 57.85, bringing the average price of a bag to Rs 1,222.7.
The food items that witnessed increase in prices on WoW basis included onions (23.35%), tomatoes (20.38%), chicken (7.67%), wheat flour (4.97%), eggs (3.83%), pulse masoor (2.04%), garlic & potatoes (1.34%) each, vegetable ghee 1kg (1.32%), washing soap (1.29%), cooking oil 5 litre (1.22%) and beef (1.11%).
The year on year trend depicts increase of 13.64% with most of the items increased, mainly, electricity for Q1 (46.55%), LPG (45.76%), vegetable ghee 1 Kg (40.71%), chicken (38.55%), vegetable ghee 2.5Kg (37.26%), mustard Oil (36.74%), cooking oil 5 liter (36.56%), chilies powder (35.71%), gents sandal (33.37%) and eggs (30.81%).
According to the data, the prices of food items that witnessed decrease included bananas, prices of which decreased by 3.09% whereas price of rice (Irri-6/9) declined by 0.59% on Week-on-Week (WoW) basis.
Likewise, the prices of Moong pulse and sugar (refined) declined by 0.44% and 0.28% respectively. Among non-food items, the prices of LPG decreased by 2.59%.
On Year-on-Year basis the prices of potatoes decreased by 26.32% whereas that of Moong pulse and tomatoes declined by 25.24% and 6.68% respectively.
