SPI for the week under review in the above-mentioned group was recorded at 209.01 points against 209.17 points registered in the previous week, according to the latest data from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).

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 37.69 per cent.

The weekly SPI with base year 2015-16=100 is covering 17 urban centres and 51 essential items for all expenditure groups. The Sensitive Price Indicator for the lowest consumption group up to Rs 17,732 witnessed a 0.12 per cent decrease and went down from 216.03 points last week to 215.76 points during the week under review.

Meanwhile, the SPI for the consumption groups from Rs 17,732-22,888, Rs22,889-29,517, Rs 29,518-44,175 and above Rs 44,175 decreased by 0.10 percent, 0.09 percent, 0.08 percent and 0.07 percent respectively.

During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 26 (50.98%) items increased, 09 (17.65%) items decreased and 16 (31.37%) items remained stable. The items, which recorded decrease in their average prices on WoW basis, included onions (10.18%), bananas (2.71%), chicken (1.03%), vegetable ghee 1 kg (0.79%), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (0.55%), mustard oil (0.36%), rice Basmati broken (0.33%), cooking oil 5 litre (0.17%) and LPG (1.10%).

The commodities that witnessed an increase on a WoW basis included tomatoes (10.35%), salt (3.73%), eggs (3.67%), pulse mash (3.65%), pulse moong (3.18%), pulse masoor (2.13%), garlic (2.03%), firewood (1.36%) and tea packet (1.29%).

On year-on-year basis, the commodities that witnessed decrease in prices included chillies powder (43.42%), sugar (16.27%) and gur (1.86%).The commodities that witnessed increase in prices included diesel (109.15%) , pulse masoor (111.90%), diesel (109.15%), onions (90.05%), petrol (88.94%), cooking oil 5 litre (73.50%), mustard oil (72.31%), vegetable ghee 1 kg (70.54%), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (67.61%), washing soap (61.92%), pulse gram (59.51%), chicken (57.14%), electricity for Q1 (52.61%), gents sponge chappal (52.21%), pulse mash (51.08%) and garlic (37.88%).