KARACHI:
The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) for the week ended March 20, 2025 recorded a year-on-year (YoY) decrease of 1.20% and a week-on-week (WoW) decline of 0.35%, signalling some relief in inflationary pressures.
The weekly drop was primarily driven by lower prices of essential food items, including tomatoes, onions, garlic, eggs and potatoes. However, prices of certain non-food items, such as printed lawn fabric and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), as well as bananas saw an uptick.
Out of the 51 monitored items, 22 remained stable, 18 decreased and 11 increased, reflecting a mixed inflationary trend.
The decrease in weekly inflation was fuelled mainly by lower prices of essential food items, including tomatoes (-7.08%), onions (-6.07%), garlic (-5.59%), eggs (-4.64%), potatoes (-2.50%), pulse gram (-1.60%), Lipton tea (-1.30%), sugar (-0.87%) and firewood (-0.60%).
However, some items registered an increase in prices, such as printed lawn fabric (+2.90%), LPG (+1.53%), bananas (+1.45%), long cloth (+1.23%), bread (+0.55%), cigarettes (+0.27%), beef (+0.25%), curd (+0.24%) and salt powder (+0.03%).
On a yearly basis, the SPI showed an overall decrease of 1.20%, with notable declines in onions (-67.67%), wheat flour (-35.58%), tomatoes (-29.45%), chilli powder (-20%), electricity charges (-18.92%), Lipton tea (-16.98%), pulse mash (-13.96%) and diesel (-9.37%).
In contrast, several items experienced a significant price surge, including ladies’ sandals (+75.09%), pulse moong (+26.96%), powdered milk (+25.75%), beef (+21.01%), sugar (+18.65%), chicken (+18.23%) and vegetable ghee (+16.13%).
The latest SPI data reflects a mixed inflationary trend, where food prices are showing a downward shift, while some essential household and non-food items are registering a price hike.
Overall, the headline inflation for March 2025 is projected to drop to 0.79% YoY, marking a 59-year low, as compared to 1.51% in the previous month, according to research house Arif Habib Limited (AHL).
This will be the lowest inflation since December 1965, when it stood at 0.58%, according to the State Bank data. On a month-on-month (MoM) basis, the inflation is expected to rise 0.98%.
