Pakistan’s weekly sensitive price indicator (SPI) fell 0.77% week-to-week for the period ended on January 23, 2025, marking its fourth fall in a row.

The fall was largely driven by significant price declines for essential items, including tomatoes (-33%), eggs (-10%), onion (-10%) and potatoes (-7%).

On an annual basis, SPI recorded a modest increase of 0.5%, the lowest in almost seven years, signaling the cooling of inflation pressure, according to Topline research.

“Spi reading is the lowest as the data is available,” noted AHL Director Research Tahir Abbas.

According to Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), a significant decrease was observed on the week’s week in the prices of tomatoes (-32.99%), eggs (-10.23%), onion (-9.79%), potatoes (-7.37%), liquid petroleum gas (LPG, -2.70%), heart rate gram (-1.61%), chicken (-1%), heart rate mos (-0.76%) and gur (-0 , 50%).

On the other hand, prices on multiple items recorded an increase, including sugar (2.93%), bananas (2.70%), garlic (0.60%), broken basmati rice (0.47%), en-kg vegetable ghee (0.33%), pulse moong (0.25%), cooked daal (0.21%), irri-6/9 rice (0.15%) and firewood (0.13%).

On an annual basis, SPI showed a total increase of 0.52%. Remarkable price increases were seen in women’s sandals (75.09%), potatoes (44.30%), pulse gram (37.98%), pulse moong (32.67%), powder milk (25.89%), beef ( 22.37%), en-kg vegetable ghee (16.87%), garlic (16.28%), Q1 gas fees (15.52%), shirts (14.83%), 2.5 kg of vegetable ghee ( 14.54%) and firewood (0.13%). Meanwhile, significant price reductions were recorded for onions (-51.59%), eggs (-39.15%), tomatoes (-37.43%), wheat flour (-36.29%), chili powder (-20%) , Q1 Electricity Charges (-18.11%), Pulse Masoor (-11.01%), Pulse Mos (-10.27%), broken Basmati Rice (-8.56%), Diesel (-5.47%), LPG (-1.79%) and gasoline (-1.18%).

JS Global Vice Research Head said that the ongoing sharp disinflationary trend was expected to continue, with January Consumer Price Index (CPI), which would probably fall to 2.8%, the lowest since November 2015 due to a high basic effect despite a 0 , 6% month- uptick in the month. This will take 7MFY25 average inflation to 6.7%, down from 7MFY24 average of 28.7%.