The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported on Friday that the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) rose by 0.27 percent for the combined consumption groups during the week ending February 20.
The PBS data shows that the SPI for the week under review reached 319.12 points, up from 318.26 points the previous week. Compared to last year’s week, the SPI for the combined consumption group increased by 1.21 percent.
Based on the 2015-16 index (100), the weekly SPI covers 17 urban centers and tracks 51 essential items for all expenditure groups. For the lowest consumption group (up to Rs 17,732), the SPI increased by 0.19 percent, rising to 308.82 points from 308.24 points the previous week.
The SPI increased by 0.23 percent for the Rs 17,732-22,888 consumption group, 0.24 percent for the Rs 22,889-29,517 group, 0.28 percent for the Rs 29,518-44,175 group, and 0.28 percent for those spending above Rs 44,175. During the week, prices rose for 11 out of 51 items (21.57%), dropped for 16 items (31.37%), and remained stable for 24 items (47.06%).
The average prices of several items dropped on a week-on-week basis, including tomatoes (2.81%), diesel (1.49%), pulse gram (1.24%), onions (1.16%), potatoes (0.90%), pulse mash (0.60%), LPG (0.58%), petrol (0.36%), rice basmati broken (0.34%), vegetable ghee (1 kg) (0.32%), and pulse moong (0.30%).
The inflation price also includes eggs (7.80%), chicken (4.47%), garlic (1.08%), sugar (0.65%), beef (0.52%), mutton (0.22%), pulse masoor (0.15%), and washing soap (0.07%).
On a year-on-year basis, the prices of several commodities decreased, including tomatoes (58.82%), onions (49.86%), wheat flour (37.05%), chilies powder (20.00%), electricity charges for Q1 (18.92%), pulse mash (12.03%), pulse masoor (11.43%), rice basmati broken (9.15%), diesel (8.07%), rice (7.60%), petrol (6.97%), and LPG (1.32%), ladies’ sandals (75.09%), pulse moong (28.07%), pulse gram (26.20%), powdered milk (25.84%), bananas (24.15%), beef (22.47%), potatoes (20.71%), garlic (19.18%), vegetable ghee (1kg) (16.41%), gas charges for Q1 (15.52%), shirting (14.11%), and firewood (12.73%).
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