ISLAMABAD: The weekly inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), witnessed an increase of 0.81 percent for the combined consumption groups during the week ended on January 4, as reported by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Friday.
The SPI for the week was registered at 313.66 points as compared to 311.14 points during the past week, according to the PBS data.
Compared to the corresponding week of the previous year, the SPI for the combined consumption group in the week under review saw an increase of 42.86 percent.
The weekly SPI with the base year 2015-16 =100 encompasses 17 urban centers and 51 essential items for all expenditure groups.
Breaking down the data further, the SPI for the lowest consumption group up to Rs 17,732, increased by 0.81 percent and went up to 308.53 points from last week’s 306.04 points.
For consumption groups ranging from from Rs 17,732-22,888, Rs 22,889-29,517; Rs 29,518-44,175 and above Rs 44,175 it increased by 0.84 percent, 0.79 percent, 0.83 and 0.80 percent respectively.
During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 19 (37.25%) items increased, 09 (17.65%) items decreased and 23 (45.10%) items remained stable.
Among the items that witnessed a decrease in their average prices on a week-on-week (WoW) included potatoes (8.68%), tea Lipton (1.29%), garlic (0.68%), cooking oil 5 litre & vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (0.54%) each, washing soap (0.47%), pulse mash (0.36%), wheat flour bag (0.23%) and vegetable ghee 1 kg (0.08%).
Conversely, items that recorded an increase on a week-on-week basis included tomatoes (16.04%), chicken (13.98%), eggs (3.20%), onions (3.04%), bananas (2.13%), pulse gram (2.12%), sugar (2.04%), pulse moong (1.68%), LPG (1.19%), firewood (0.51%) and georgette (0.23%).
On a year-on-year (YoY) basis, the items that witnessed decrease in prices included onions (25.11%), mustard oil (4.40%), vegetable ghee 1 kg (2.12%), bananas (1.05%), and vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (0.95%).
Items that recorded an increase in their average prices on a year-on-year basis included gas charges for Q1 (1108.59%), tomatoes (94.05%), cigarettes (93.22%), chilies powder (81.74%), garlic (67.88%), wheat flour bag (65.36%), chappal (58.05%), sugar (57.76%), rice irri-6/9 (54.52%), gents sandal (53.37%), rice basmati broken (51.45%), and gur (48.07%).
