February 26, 2006	Sunday	Muharram 27, 1427

ISLAMABAD, Feb 25: The Sensitive Price Index (SPI) rose by 0.04 per cent during the week ending Feb 24, over the previous week, according to a weekly price data released by the Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) here on Saturday.

The overall SPI recorded an increase during the week under review for all income groups due to a rise in prices of potatoes, pulses, garlic and vegetable ghee and oil.

The group-wise analysis of the behaviour of prices of 53 essential items prevailing in 17 towns of Pakistan shows that the SPI witnessed increase by 0.12 per cent and 0.09 per cent for households in the two lower income brackets (up to Rs3,000 and Rs3,001-5,000).

For households in the income brackets of Rs5,001-12,000, the increase in SPI was in the range of 0.04 per cent, while for households in the income group basket of over Rs12,000, the SPI showed a negative growth of 0.01 per cent over the previous week.

Comparing with the corresponding week last year, the SPI registered an increase of 7.44 per cent during the period under review.

According to the FBS data, prices of 14 items went up during the period under review as compared to previous week. These were: tomatoes (26.01 per cent), bananas (2.12 per cent), tea prepared (2.04 per cent), garlic (0.88 per cent), bred plain medium size (0.84 per cent), salt powdered (0.76 per cent), mash pulse washed (0.4 per cent), firewood (0.34 per cent), cooked dal (0.26 per cent), red chillies powdered (0.18 per cent), beef (0.01 per cent), vegetable ghee tin (0.01 per cent) and cooking oil (0.01 per cent).

The week under report also saw a decrease in average prices of 13 essential items. These included: egg farm (28.16 per cent), chicken farm (6.16 per cent), LPG cylinder (3 per cent), onions (2.96 per cent), sugar (1.76 per cent), potatoes (0.25pc), wheat (0.17 per cent), rice basmati broken (0.15pc), masoor pulse washed (0.15 per cent), moong pulse washed (0.1 per cent), gur (0.06 per cent) and vegetable ghee loose (0.03 per cent).