Daily Times

The weekly inflation measured by the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), witnessed an increase of 1.28 percent for the combined consumption groups during the week ended on July 4, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported on Friday.

According to the PBS data, the SPI for the week under review in the above-mentioned group was recorded at 318.61 points as compared to 314.57 points during the past week.

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 23.59 per cent.

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 of up to Rs 17,732, increased by 1.43 per cent and went up to 310.99 points from last week?s 306.62 points.

The SPI for consumption groups of Rs 17,732-22,888, Rs 22,889-29,517; Rs 29,518-44,175 and above Rs 44,175, increased by 1.44 percent, 1.31 percent, 1.31 and 1.23 percent respectively. During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 29 (56.86%) items increased, 05 (9.80%) items decreased and 17 (33.34%) items remained stable. The items, which recorded a decrease in their average prices on a week-on-week basis included onions (9.05%), potatoes (1.04%), eggs (0.79%), bananas (0.60%) and bread (0.02%).

The commodities which recorded an increase in their average prices on week-on-week basis included tomatoes (70.77%), wheat flour (10.57%), powdered milk (8.90%), diesel (3.58%), petrol (2.88%), pulse gram (2.87%), pulse moong (2.86%), chicken (2.40%),LPG (1.63%), garlic (1.54%), pulse masoor (1.10%) and sugar (0.93%).

On-year basis, the commodities that witnessed decrease included wheat flour (28.25%), chicken (28.23%), cooking oil 5 litre (15.17%), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (12.54%), vegetable ghee 1 kg (11.49%), mustard oil (8.31%), bananas (4.52%), tea packet (2.52%) and rice basmati broken (1.35%).

The commodities which recorded an increase in their average prices on year-on-year basis included gas charges for q1 (570.00%), tomatoes (161.12%), onions (79.04%), chilies powder (55.00%), garlic (36.13%), pulse gram (32.45%), salt powder (29.54%), shirting (27.08%), pulse moong (26.40%), powered milk (25.78%), gents sandal (25.01%), pulse mash (22.21%), beef (21.95%), electricity charges for q1 (21.46%) and LPG (21.15%).