ISLAMABAD: The weekly inflation Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) for the current week ended on January 11, 2024 increased by 1.36 per cent.

The SPI data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) recorded year-on-year basis increased to 44.16 per cent. The SPI is

computed on a weekly basis to assess the price movement of essential commodities at shorter interval of time so as to review the price situation in the country.

The SPI comprises 51 essential items collected from 50 markets in 17 cities of the country.

The data revealed that during the week, major increase is observed in the prices of tomatoes (15.63%), onions (8.94%), chicken (6.42%), electricity charges for Q1 (5.11%), eggs (4.31%), match box (2.56%), gur (2.30%), LPG (2.29%), pulse gram (2.11%), energy saver (1.40%), maash (0.83%), and rice IRRI-6/9 (0.67%).

On the other hand, a decrease is observed in the prices of potatoes (5.92%), vegetable ghee 1kg (0.84%), sugar (0.43%), vegetable ghee 2.5kg (0.29%), mustard oil (0.26%), cooking oil 5-litre (0.17%), garlic (0.13%), and moong (0.06%).

While during the week, out of 51 items, prices of 21 (41.18%) items increased, eight (15.68%) items decreased, and 22 (43.14%) items remained stable.

The year-on-year trend depicts increase of 44.16%, gas charges for Q1 (1108.59%), tomatoes (155.83%), cigarettes (93.22%), chilies powder (81.74%), garlic (60.43%), gents sponge chappal (58.05%), sugar (57.20%), wheat flour (55.26%), gents sandal (53.37%), rice IRRI-6/9 (51.57%), gur (50.58%), and rice Basmati broken (46.91%), while a decrease is observed in the prices of mustard oil (7.10%), onions (6.68%), vegetable ghee 1kg (1.67%), and bananas (1.53%).

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024