Pakistan(National Times)- KARACHI: Weekly inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), recorded a slight decline of 0.09% for the week ending March 6, 2025, The News reported on Saturday. The drop was mainly driven by lower prices of essential food items and fuel. The SPI, which tracks the prices of 51 key consumer goods across 17 cities, showed that out of these items, 20 registered price decreases, 13 recorded increases, while 18 remained unchanged. As per the data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), a significant drop in food prices contributed to the overall decrease in inflation. The sharpest declines were seen in onions (down 5.59%), Lipton tea (4.47%), garlic (3.89%), tomatoes (3.6%), pulse gram (3.49%), pulse mash (2.82%), potatoes (2.6%), and pulse masoor (1.5%). Diesel prices also saw a slight dip of 2% and petrol went down 0.24%. Despite the overall decline, some essential commodities registered price hikes. Bananas saw the largest increase, surging 9.79% week-on-week (WoW). Sugar prices rose 3.15%, followed by LPG (2.64%), eggs (2.52%), mutton (0.33%), and wheat flour (0.22%). Prices of long cloth and gur each increased by 0.17%, while cigarettes and beef saw marginal upticks of 0.06%. On a year-on-year (YoY) basis, the SPI dropped by 0.87%, driven by a sharp decline in prices of several food staples. The most notable decreases were observed in onions (down 64.92%), tomatoes (57.05%), wheat flour (36.81%), chilies powder (20%), electricity charges for the first quarter (18.92%), tea (14.92%), pulse mash (14.68%), pulse masoor (12.33%), diesel (9.91%), rice basmati broken (9.55%), petrol (8.55%) and LPG (2.54%). In contrast, some items experienced steep year-on-year price increases. The most significant rise was in ladies’ sandals, which surged by 75.09%. Other notable price hikes were recorded in bananas (30.96%), pulse moong (26.9%), powdered milk (25.86%), beef (22.51%), pulse gram (21.73%), vegetable ghee (16.12% for the one-kilogram pack and 14.32% for the 2.5 kg pack), shirting fabric (14.13%), eggs (13.52%), firewood (11.07%), and georgette fabric (10.89%). The weekly inflation trend varied across different income groups. The lowest income quintile saw the sharpest decline of 0.20%, while the highest income group experienced a marginal drop of 0.03%. On a year-on-year basis, the lowest expenditure group saw a significant decline of 2.47%, whereas the highest income group registered a slight increase of 0.24%.