Spike in tomato, chicken prices pushes up inflation

ISLAMABAD: Inflation based on the Sensitive Price Index (SPI) for the combined consumption group for the week ended on August 12 increased by 0.61% 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 0.61%.

This was mainly due to an increase in prices of tomatoes (37.47%), chicken (9.21%), potatoes (1.31%), and vegetable ghee 2.5 Kg (1.16%).

On the other hand, a decrease was recorded in the prices of bananas (3.82%), eggs (1.76%), onions (1.72%), Moong pulse (1.32%), LPG (0.71%) and Masoor pulse (0.37%).

Out of 51 items, prices of 18 (35.29%) items increased while those of 6 (11.76%) items decreased and the rates of 27 (52.94%) items remained unchanged.

The year on year trend showed an increase of 13.33% with most of the items increased, mainly, electricity for Q1 (60.81%), LPG (57.82%), tomatoes (39.97%), chilies powder (35.71%), vegetable ghee 1 Kg (34.34%), vegetable ghee 2.5Kg (34.15%), mustard oil (34.01%), cooking oil 5 liter (32.89%), and chicken (23.08%), while a major decrease was observed in the prices of potatoes (21.80%) and Moong pulse (20.20%).