The weekly inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), witnessed an increase of 9.95 percent for the combined consumption group during the week ended on November 16, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported Friday.
The SPI for the week under review in the above-mentioned group was recorded at 309.09 points as compared to 281.12 points during the past week, according to the PBS data. 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 41.90 percent.
The weekly SPI with the base year 2015-16 =100 covers 17 urban centers and 51 essential items for all expenditure groups. The SPI for the lowest consumption group up to Rs 17,732, increased by 6.63 percent and went up to 308.35 points from last week’s 289.19 points. 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 10.34 percent, 12.80 percent, 10.50 percent and 8.07 percent respectively. During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 25 (49.02 percent) items increased, 13 (25.49 percent) items decreased and 13 (25.49 percent) items remained stable.
The items, which recorded a decrease in their average prices on a week-on-week (WoW) included electricity charges (16.06 percent), tomatoes (11.16 percent), sugar (4.24 percent), diesel (2.15 percent), onions (1.49 percent), vegetable ghee 1 kg (1.39 percent), petrol (0.73 percent), cooking oil 5 litre (0.65 percent), rice irri-6/9 (0.42 percent), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (0.28 percent) and gur (0.27 percent). The items that recorded an increase in their average prices on a week-on-week (wow) basis, included gas (480.00 percent), tea packet (8.88 percent), pulse masoor (5.28 percent), chicken (3.99 percent), garlic (3.09 percent), salt powdered (2.93 percent), wheat flour (2.64 percent), tea prepared (2.07 percent), LPG (2.03 percent), potatoes (2.00 percent), and shirting (1.10 percent) On a Year-on-Year (YoY) basis, the items that witnessed decrease in prices included tomatoes (14.02 percent), mustard oil (3.95 percent), vegetable ghee 1 kg (2.05 percent) and pulse gram (0.49 percent). The commodities which recorded an increase in their average prices on YoY basis included gas charges for q1 (1108.59 percent), cigarettes (94.46 percent), wheat flour (86.41 percent), chilies powdered (81.74 percent), rice basmati broken (76.70 percent), garlic (63.56 percent), rice irri-6/9 (61.91 percent), gents sponge chappal (58.05 percent), tea packet (54.57 percent), gents sandal (53.37 percent), gur (51.01 percent), sugar (49.96 percent) and salt powder (46.37 percent).