ISLAMABAD: The weekly inflation examined by the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), recorded an increase of 1.36 percent for the combined consumption groups for the week ended on January 11, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported on Friday.
As per the PBS data, the SPI for the mentioned week in the relevant group was witnessed at 317.92 points against 313.66 points during earlier week.
While comparing the corresponding week with the last year, the SPI for the combined consumption group in the week under review recorded a surge of 44.16 percent. The weekly SPI with the base year 2015-16 =100 covers 17 urban centres and 51 essential items for all expenditure groups.
The SPI for the lowest consumption group up to Rs. 17,732, went up by 1.20 percent and increased up to 312.23 points from 308.53 points last week. The SPI for consumption groups from Rs. 17,732-22,888, Rs. 22,889-29,517; Rs. 29,518-44,175 and above Rs. 44,175, witnessed an increase by 1.34 percent, 1.29 percent,1.28 and 1.34 percent respectively.
Weekly Base Inflation
As price of basic items in the week are concerned, out of 51 items, rates of 21 (41.18%) items went up, 08 (15.68%) items down and 22 (43.14%) items recorded no change. The items witnessing a decline in their average prices on a week-on-week basis comprising potatoes (5.92%), vegetable ghee 1 kg (0.84%), sugar (0.43%), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (0.29%), mustard oil (0.26%), cooking oil 5 litre (0.17%), garlic (0.13%) and pulse moong (0.06%).
Commodities that witnessed a surge in their average prices on a week-on-week basis included tomatoes (15.63%), onion (8.94%), chicken (6.42%), electricity charges for q1 (5.11%), eggs (4.31%), match box (2.56%), gur (2.30%), LPG (2.29%), pulse gram (2.11%), energy saver (1.40%), pulse mash (0.83%) and rice irri-6/9 (0.67%).
On a Year-on-Year (Y-O-Y) basis, the basic items witnessing a decline in prices included mustard oil (7.10%), onion (6.68%), vegetable ghee 1 kg (1.67%) and bananas (1.53%).
The items which experienced an increase in their average prices on Y-O-Y basis included gas charges for Q1 (1108.59%), tomatoes (155.83%), cigarettes (93.22%), chillies powder (81.74%), garlic (60.43%), gents sponge chappal (58.05%), sugar (57.20%), wheat flour (55.26%), gents sandal (53.37%), rice irri-6/9 (51.57%), gur (50.58%) and rice basmati broken (46.91%).
