Prices of chicken, eggs, tomatoes, pulses, other food items go down

ISLAMABAD, The prices of various food items went down considerably during the week ending on August 5, as compared to the previous week, the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) data released by Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) Friday revealed.

According to the data, the prices of tomatoes witnessed decrease of 18 per cent whereas banana prices declined by 8.13 per cent on Week-on-Week basis (WoW).

Likewise the prices of chicken and eggs decreased by 3.86 per cent and 3.53 per cent respectively. The prices of Moong pulse, onions, potatoes and Mash pulse also went down by 2.11 per cent, 1.37 per cent, 0.37 per cent and 0.24 per cent respectively. Price of rice IRRI went down by 0.16 per cent, wheat flour bag by 0.10 and sugar by 0.05 per cent.

Meanwhile, on Year-on-Year basis the prices of food items that witnessed decrease included potatoes the prices of which declined by 23.42 per cent whereas the price of Moong pulse declined by 20.73 per cent , tomatoes by 4.19 per cent and chicken by 2.13 per cent.

On the other hand, the items that witnessed increase in prices on WoW basis included garlic, the prices of which increased by 4.19 per cent whereas LPG prices went up by 3.67 per cent, and petrol by 1.44 per cent.

On YoY basis, the food items that witnessed increase in prices included electricity for quarter 1, which increased by 60.81 per cent, followed by increase of 57.99 per cent in LPG prices.

Prices of mustard oil also went y by 35.89per cent, chilies powder by 35.71 per cent, vegetable ghee( 1 Kg) by 33.89per cent, gents sandal by 33.37 per cent, vegetable ghee (2.5Kg) by 32.45 per cent, cooking Oil (5liter) by 32.26 per cent, gents sponge Chappal by 25.13per cent and match box by 21.51per cent.

It is pertinent to mention here that the overall SPI based weekly inflation for the week ended on August 5 witnessed an increase of 0.12 per cent as compared to the previous week.

The weekly SPI with base year 2015-16=100 is covering 17 urban centers and 51 essential items for all expenditure groups.

During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 17 (33.33 per cent) items increased 11 (21.56 per cent) items decreased and 23 (45.1 per cent) items remained constant.