Prices of food items fall: PBS

ISLAMABAD: The prices of food items went down during the week in comparison with the previous week, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) data released on Friday.

The food commodities that observed a reduction in prices on a week-on-week (WoW) basis included potatoes and tomatoes, the prices of which declined 15.52 per cent and 12.65 per cent, respectively.

The other food products that witnessed decrease in prices included chicken (5.94 per cent), onions (3.94 per cent), eggs (1.69 per cent), gur (1.34 per cent), sugar (1.29 per cent), chilies powdered (0.57 per cent), beef (0.54 per cent), pulse Moong (0.37 per cent), rice Basmati broken (0.20 per cent), mutton (0.15 per cent) and wheat flour (0.04 per cent).

According to the data, non-food items, the prices of diesel and petrol declined by 3.48 per cent and 3.40 per cent.

On a year-on-year (YoY) basis, the commodities that witnessed decrease in prices during the week compared to corresponding week of last year included onions (28.72 per cent), pulse Moong (24.87 per cent), chicken (16.09 per cent), tomatoes (14.76 per cent), potatoes (14.58 per cent) and eggs (9.86 per cent).

Whereas, the items that perceived upsurge in prices on a week-on-week basis included pulse masoor (4.11 per cent), salt (3.70 per cent), pulse gram (2.08 per cent), bananas (1.69 per cent), mustard oil (1.35 per cent), pulse mash (1.32 per cent).

Among non-food items, the prices of electricity for the first quarter went up by 10.37 per cent and washing soap by 1.23 per cent.

On a YoY basis, the commodities that witnessed increase in prices Electricity for Q1 (83.95 per cent), LPG (65.26 per cent), cooking oil 5 litre (60.37 per cent), vegetable ghee 1kg (57.56 per cent), vegetable ghee 2.5kg (55.62 per cent), mustard oil (55.60 per cent), washing soap (45.75 per cent), petrol (35.42 per cent), chilies powdered (32.24 per cent), pulse masoor (29.52 per cent) and diesel (26.72 per cent).

During the week, of the 51 items, prices of 17 (33.34 per cent) increased, 15 (29.41 per cent) items decreased and 19 (37.25 per cent) items remained stable.

The SPI-based weekly inflation for the week ended December 16 observed a surge of 0.55 per cent for the collective income group.