ISLAMABAD
The weekly inflation measured by the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), witnessed an increase of 1.35 per cent for the combined consumption groups during the week ended on March 14, 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 327.21 points as compared to 322.86 points during the past week.
The SPI for the combined consumption group in the week under review witnessed an increase of 32.89 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 consumption groups from Rs. 17,732-22,888, Rs. 22,889-29,517; Rs. 29,518-44,175 and above Rs. 44,175, increased by 0.86 percent, 1.25 percent, 1.41 and 1.55 percent respectively. During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 18 (35.29%) items increased, 10 (19.61%) items decreased and 23 (45.10%) items remained stable.
The items, which recorded a decrease in their average prices on a week-on-week basis included cooking oil 5 litre (1.08%), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (1.07%), wheat flour (0.95%), sugar (0.64%), gur (0.57%), rice basmati broken (0.50%), pulse masoor (0.17%) and pulse mash (0.15%).
The items that recorded an increase in their prices included tomatoes (21.96%), bananas (21.76%), eggs (7.15%), onions (5.57%), LPG (4.45%), garlic (3.62%), mutton (1.74%), beef (1.53%), chicken (1.40%), georgette (1.04%), shirting (1.01%) and long cloth (0.94%). On Year-on-Year basis, the commodities that witnessed decrease included cooking oil 5 litre (21.33%), vegetable ghee 1 kg (19.12%), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (17.89%), mustard oil (15.26%), bananas (3.94%), diesel (1.88%) and cigarettes (0.05%).
The commodities which recorded an increase in their average prices on year-on-year basis included gas charges for q1 ( 570%), tomatoes (185.68%), onions (90.27%), chilies powder (81.74%), garlic (60.13%), gents sponge chappal (58.05%), gents sandal (53.37%), wheat flour (51.91%), gur (41.32%), sugar (37.09%), salt powder (34.71%) and energy saver.
