The Sensitive Price Indicator’s (SPI) weekly-based inflation readings for the week that ended on August 25 for the combined consumption group witnessed an increase of 1.83 percent as compared to the previous week.
The SPI for the week under review in the above-mentioned group was recorded at 219.97 points against 216.02 points registered in the previous week, according to the latest data from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) released on Friday. As compared to the corresponding week of last year, the SPI for the combined consumption group in the week under review witnessed an increase of 44.58 percent.
The weekly SPI with base year 2015-16=100 is covering 17 urban centres and 51 essential items for all expenditure groups. The Sensitive Price Indicator for the lowest consumption group up to Rs17,732 witnessed 2.66 percent increase and went up from 219.64 points in last week to 225.48 points during the week under review.
During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 23 (45.10%) items increased, 07 (13.72%) items decreased and 21 (41.18%) items remained stable. The items, which recorded a decrease in their average prices on a WoW basis included pulse masoor (1.18%), vegetable ghee 1kg (1.00%), vegetable ghee 2.5kg (0.82%), bananas (0.61%), cooking oil 5 litre (0.51%), sugar (0.28%) and mustard oil (0.07%).
The commodities, which recorded increase in their average prices, are tomatoes (43.09%), onions (41.13%), potatoes (6.32%), eggs (3.43%), garlic (2.23%), powdered milk (1.53%) and pulse mash (1.12%), non-food items, cigarettes (2.26%) and LPG (1.95%).
On a year-on-year basis, the commodities that witnessed a decrease in prices
included chillies powder (43.42%), sugar (16.90%) and gur (1.21%). The commodities that witnessed increase in prices included tomatoes (178.10%), onions (155.14%), diesel (108.77%), petrol (94.53%), pulse masoor (90.74%), cooking oil 5 litre (70.61%), mustard oil (67.58%), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (64.71%), vegetable ghee 1 kg (63.93%), washing soap (63.27%), electricity for q1 (63.03%), chicken
(55.76%) and pulse gram (55.07%).
