SPI-based weekly inflation records 0.71pc increase

ISLAMABAD: The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) based weekly inflation for the week ending on September 17 recorded an increase of 0.71 per cent, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).

It attributed the increase to a rise of one per cent or more in prices of food items, including tomatoes (27.71%), eggs (5.69%), chicken (4.94%), and non-food items i.e. energy saver (2.49%), washing soap (1.18%) and georgette (1.11%) with the joint impact of 0.70 into the overall SPI for combined group of (0.71%).

On the other hand, a decrease was observed in the prices of bananas (4.74%), LPG (1.01%) and potatoes (0.23%).

During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 26 (50.98%) items increased, 3 (5.88%) items decreased and 22 (43.14%) items remained constant.

The year on year inflation trend depicts an increase of 8.72% with most of the items seeing their prices soar, mainly tomatoes (87.94%), chilies powder (86.31%), potatoes (69.71%), pulse Moong (41.71%), eggs (39.57%), pulse Mash (35.92%), sugar (26.66%), pulse Masoor (24.53%), bread (18.80%), match box (18.03%), vegetable ghee 1Kg (17.58%), gur (17.50%), wheat flour bag (16.41%), washing soap (15.86%), rice IRRI 6/9 (15.77%), long cloth (15.45%) and veg ghee 2.5Kg (15.31%). While a major decrease was observed in the price of onions (32.79%), chicken (23.75%), diesel (16.10%), garlic (12.33%), petrol (8.11%) and LPG (5.99%).