January 22, 2006	Sunday	Zilhaj 21, 1426

ISLAMABAD, Jan 21: The Sensitive Price Index (SPI) decreased by 0.32 per cent during the week ending January 20 over the previous week, according to the weekly price data released by the Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) here on Saturday.

The data, however, indicated that the overall SPI recorded a decrease during the week under review for all income groups, but prices of LPG cylinder, wheat, wheat flour, sugar and vegetable ghee registered a growth, thus putting more pressures on the low income people.

Interestingly, the price of wheat flour and wheat registered an increase following the abolishing of regulatory duty on export of the commodity to Afghanistan recently.

The group-wise analysis of the behaviour of prices of 53 essential items prevailing in 17 towns of Pakistan shows that SPI witnessed a decrease by 0.14 per cent and 0.20 per cent for households in two lower income brackets (up to Rs3,000 and Rs3,001-5,000).

For the households in the income brackets Rs5,001-12,000, the decrease in the SPI was in the range of 0.27 per cent, while for the households in the income group basket of over Rs12,000, the SPI declined by 0.32 per cent over the previous week.

Comparing with the corresponding week last year, the SPI, however, registered an increase of 6.81 per cent during the week under review.

According to the FBS data, prices of nine items went up during the period under review over the previous week.

These were: LPG 11-kg cylinder (3.18 per cent), bananas (2.73 per cent), sugar (1.42 per cent), wheat (1.36 per cent), mash pulse washed (0.94 per cent), moong pulse washed (0.86 per cent), wheat flour (0.46 per cent), red chillies powdered (0.12pc) and vegetable ghee loose (0.03pc).

The week under report also saw a decrease in average prices of nine essential items. These included: tomatoes (13.62pc), egg farm (7.79 per cent) chicken farm (4.19 per cent), potatoes (2.46 per cent), onions (2.13 per cent), garlic (1.39 per cent), gur (1.28 per cent), masoor pulse washed (0.29 per cent) and gram pulse washed (0.11 per cent).