October 22, 2006	Sunday	Ramazan 28, 1427

ISLAMABAD, Oct 21: The Sensitive Price Index (SPI) rose by 0.42 per cent during the week ending October 19, over the previous week, according to the weekly price data released by the Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) here on Saturday.

The data indicated that the overall SPI recorded an increase during the week under review for all income groups because of an increase in prices of onion, potatoes, chicken, wheat flour and some other essential products.

The group-wise analysis of the behaviour of prices of 53 essential items prevailing in 17 towns of Pakistan shows that the SPI witnessed an increase of 0.36 per cent and 0.37 per cent, respectively, for households in the two lower income brackets (up to Rs3,000 and Rs3,001-5,000).

For the households in income brackets Rs5,001-12,000, the increase in the SPI was in the range of 0.38 per cent, while for the households in the income group basket of over Rs12,000, the inflation registered a growth 0.33 per cent over the previous week.

Comparing with the corresponding week last year, the SPI registered an increase of 9.86 per cent during the period under review.

According to data, prices of 11 items went up during the period under review as compared to the previous week. These were: Onion (19.40 per cent), potatoes (2.23 per cent), chicken farm (5.07 per cent), garlic (1.56 per cent), egg hen (1.51 per cent), red chillies (1.33 per cent), masoor pulse washed (0.75 per cent), vegetable ghee tin (0.28 per cent), cooking oil tin (0.28 per cent), tea packet (0.13 per cent), and mustard oil (0.08 per cent).

The week under report also saw decrease in average prices of 10 essential items. These included: LPG cylinder (7.04 per cent), tomatoes (2.70 per cent), bananas (2.27 per cent), sugar (0.76 per cent), moong pulse washed (0.67 per cent), gur (0.64 per cent), mash pulse washed (0.40 per cent), wheat (0.25 per cent), gram pulse washed (0.21 per cent) and vegetable ghee loose (0.03 per cent).