No respite as weekly inflation rises 0.03%

ISLAMABAD: Inflation based on the Sensitive Price Index (SPI) for the combined consumption group for the week ended on July 29 increased by 0.03% due to an uptick in prices of essential food items, data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) showed on Friday.

The Sensitive Price Index (SPI) that is calculated on the basis of the prices of 51 essential items from 50 markets across 17 cities of the country recorded an increase of 0.03%.

This was mainly due to an increase in prices of most of the essential items, including LPG (up 9.58%), tomatoes (6.64%), petrol (4.73%), eggs (3.52%), vegetable ghee 2.5kg (2.52%), onions (2.34%), diesel (2.30%), vegetable ghee 1kg (1.81%), sugar (1.49%) and cooking Oil (1.23%) with joint impact of (0.76%) in the overall SPI for combined group of (0.03%).

On the other hand, a decrease in the prices of chicken (18.35%), bananas (1.32%), Moong pulse (1.32%), potatoes (1.23%), Mash pulse (0.58%) and Gram pulse (0.06%) was observed.

Out of the 51 items, prices of 23 (45.1%) items increased while those of 6 (11.8%) items decreased and rates of 22 (43.1%) items remained constant.