Daily Times

The prices of various food items went down during the week ending on January 6 as compared to the previous week, according to the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Friday.

According to the data, the food commodities that witnessed a decrease in prices on a Week-on-Week (WoW) basis included tomatoes and chillies, the prices of which declined by 18.28 percent and 14.54 percent respectively.
The other food products that witnessed a decrease in prices included eggs (2.23pc), LPG (0.96pc), rice Irri (0.17pc), wheat flour (0.06pc) and mustard oil (0.05pc)

On a Year-on-Year (YoY) basis, the commodities that witnessed a decrease in prices during the week compared to the corresponding week of the last year included tomatoes (46.76pc), pulse moong (24.70pc), onions (12.02pc), eggs (7.68pc) and chilies powdered (3.30pc).

On the other hand, the items that witnessed an increase in prices on a WoW basis included potatoes (5.23pc), chicken (4.45pc), bananas (2.56pc), onions (2.12pc), pulse masoor (1.55pc), pulse gram (1.46pc), pulse mash (1.44pc), diesel (2.75pc) salt (2.75pc), petrol (2.68pc) and match box.

On YoY basis, the commodities that witnessed an increase in prices included electricity for Q1 (83.95pc), cooking oil 5 litre (56.75pc), vegetable ghee 1Kg (53.85pc), vegetable ghee 2.5 Kg (53.26pc), LPG (51.50pc), gents sponge chappal (50.25pc), mustard oil (48.59pc), washing soap (45.85pc), gents sandal (44.49pc), pulse masoor (38.05pc), petrol (36.13pc) and diesel (28.07pc).

During the week, out of 51 items, the prices of 25 (49.02pc) items increased, 07 (13.73pc) items decreased and 19 (37.25pc) items remained stable.

The overall SPI-based weekly inflation for the week ended on January 6 witnessed a slight increase of 0.08 percent for the combined income group as compared to the previous week. The SPI for the week under review in the above mentioned group was recorded at 168.12 points against 167.98 points registered in the previous week.

The weekly SPI with a base year 2015-16=100 is covering 17 urban centres and 51 essential items for all expenditure groups. The Sensitive Price Indicator for the lowest consumption group up to Rs17,732 witnessed a 0.28 percent decrease and went down from 176.40 points last week to 175.91 points during the week under review.

Meanwhile, the SPI for the consumption groups from Rs17,732-22,888 and Rs22,889-29,517 witnessed a decrease of 0.18 percent and 0.10 percent whereas the SPI for the consumption group from Rs29,518-44,175 remained stable and for above Rs44,175 it increased by 0.22 percent.