Daily Times

The weekly inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), went up by 0.38 percent for the combined consumption groups during the week ended on December 19, 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 324.38 points as compared to 323.14 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 4.64 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 witnessed increase of 0.68 per cent and went up to 319.44 points from last week’s 317.28 points.

The SPI for consumption groups of Rs 17,732 to 22,888; Rs 22,889-29,517; Rs 29,518-44,175 and above Rs 44,175, increased by 0.60 percent, 0.46 percent, 0.41 percent and 0.30 percent respectively.

During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 15 (29.41%) items increased, 13 (25.49%) items decreased and 23 (45.10%) items remained stable.

The items, which recorded major decrease in their average prices on a week-on-week basis included onions (4.16%), potatoes (3.83%), eggs (2.72%), diesel (1.17%), pulse gram (0.98%), wheat flour (0.76%), bananas (0.56%), rice basmati broken & pulse moong (0.27%) each.

The commodities which recorded major increase in their average prices on week-on-week basis included tomatoes (56.66%), firewood (1.57%), garlic (1.40%), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (0.95%), cooking oil 5 litre (0.79%), mustard oil (0.74%), LPG (0.71%), gur (0.28%), vegetable ghee 1 kg (0.25%), sugar (0.23%), georgette (0.13%) and long cloth (0.10%).

On-year basis, the commodities that witnessed decrease included wheat flour (36.15%), chilies powder (20.00%), onions (13.74%), eggs (12.98%), pulse masoor (10.64%), rice basmati broken (7.62%), diesel (7.49%), electricity charges for Q1 (6.96%), bread (6.01%), petrol (5.64%) and sugar (5.20%).

The commodities which recorded an increase in their average prices on year-on-year basis included tomatoes (95.54%), ladies sandal (75.09%), pulse gram (56.75%), potatoes (50.81%), pulse moong (34.88%), powdered milk (25.62%), beef (23.84%), garlic (17.13%), gas charges for Q1 ( 15.52%), cooked daal (15.08%), shirting (14.36%) and firewood (12.43%).