ISLAMABAD-The weekly inflation, measured by Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), witnessed an increase of 0.45 percent for combined consumption group during the week ended on January 26, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported on Friday.
The SPI for the week under review in the above-mentioned group was recorded at 221.54 points as compared to 220.54 points during the past week, according to PBS data. 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 32.57 percent. The weekly SPI with the base year 2015-16 =100 is covering 17 urban centres and 51 essential items for all expenditure groups. The SPI for the lowest consumption group up to Rs 17,732 witnessed a 0.41 percent increase and went up to 229.83 points from last week’s 228.90 points.
Meanwhile, the SPI for the consumption group from Rs 17,732-22,888; Rs 22,889-29,517; Rs 29,518-44,175; and above Rs 44,175 witnessed an increase of 0.38 percent, 0.42 percent, 0.41 percent and 0.54 percent respectively. During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 25 (49.02%) items increased, 06 (11.76%) items decreased and 20 (39.22%) items remained stable.
The items which recorded a decrease in their average prices on a week-on-week (wow) basis included potatoes (4.47%), chicken (1.63%), gur (0.90%), sugar (0.85%), powdered milk (0.26%) and vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (0.08%). The commodities which recorded an increase in their average prices included onions (5.51%), rice irri-6/9 (4.51%), tomatoes (4.18%), bananas (3.57%), rice basmati broken (3.56%), garlic (3.47%), wheat flour (1.81%), pulse gram (1.74%), pulse moong (1.38%) and non-food item, LPG (5.29%).
On a year-on-year (YoY) basis, the commodities that witnessed a decrease in prices included chillies powdered (15.32%), electricity for Q1 (12.31%) and gur (0.89%). The commodities that witnessed an increase in prices on a YoY basis included onions (532.23%), chicken (102.09%), eggs (69.48%), tea lipton (63.92%), rice basmati broken (61.23%), diesel (57.34%), pulse moong (57.16%), rice irri-6/9 (57.05%), bananas (53.95%), salt powdered (49.50%), wheat flour (48.71%), bread (46.53%) and petrol (45.21%).