Daily Times

The weekly inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), witnessed an increase of 0.17 percent for the combined consumption groups during the week ended on July 25, 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 321.95 points as compared to 321.40 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 20.09 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 0.08 per cent and went up to 312.22 points from last week’s 311.97 points.

The SPI for the lowest 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 0.13 percent, 0.15 percent, 0.18 and 0.19 percent respectively.

During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 19 (37.25%) items increased, 8 (15.69%) items decreased and 24 (47.06%) items remained stable.

The items, which recorded major decrease in their average prices on a week-on-week basis included tomatoes (9.19%), onions (2.14%), LPG (1.04%), bananas (0.53%), wheat flour (0.35%), potatoes (0.17%), pulse masoor (0.16%) and bread (0.05%).

The commodities which recorded major increase in their average prices on week-on-week basis included chicken (4.80%), garlic (2.01%), pulse gram (1.87%), eggs (1.71%), beef (0.93%), gur (0.89%), pulse moong (0.84%), milk fresh (0.45%), firewood (0.23%) and cigarettes (0.12%).

On-year basis, the commodities that witnessed decrease included wheat flour (31.75%), cooking oil 5 litre (13.44%), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (10.42%), vegetable ghee 1 kg (9.85%), mustard oil (8.33%), eggs (5.82%), rice basmati broken (4.15%) and tea packet (2.52%).

The commodities which recorded an increase in their average prices on year-on-year basis included gas charges for Q1 (570.00%), onions (96.01%), pulse gram (40.39%), powered milk (39.11%), garlic (34.61%), pulse moong (29.77%), gents sandal (25.01%), shirting (24.97%), beef (23.52%), salt powder (23.28%), pulse mash (22.50%) and energy saver (17.96%).