November 12, 2006	Sunday	Shawwal 19, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, Nov 11: The prices of 18 essential daily-use items witnessed an average increase of five percent during the week ending on November 8, breaking the back of the poor particularly the low-paid employees.

The items prices of which rose mostly included tomatoes, eggs, wheat flour, sugar, vegetable oil and ghee, according to figures released by the Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) on Saturday.

The items and the price increase in percentage were: tomatoes (7.36pc), eggs hen (7.19pc), red chillies (2.35pc), milk powder (1.06pc), garlic (0.91pc), cooked beef plate (0.78pc), sugar (0.75pc), firewood (0.72pc), curd (0.59pc), mustard oil (0.34pc cent), cooked dal plate (0.34pc), milk fresh (0.31pc), wheat flour (0.22pc), rice basmati broken (0.19pc), wheat (0.17pc), vegetable ghee loose (0.17pc), mutton (0.11pc) and gram pulse washed (0.05pc).

The data showed that prices of these items were steadily on the rise for the last two to three weeks. Most of the items were manufactured products which showed that the increase in the prices could not be attributed to any shortage or disruption in the supply side.

The week under report also saw decrease in average prices of nine essential items. These included: onions (7.56pc), chicken farm (6.06pc), bananas (5.24pc), LPG cylinder (2.88pc), gur (1.51pc), potatoes (1.18pc), moong pulse washed (0.38pc), masoor washed (0.09pc) and mash washed (0.06pc).

According to the FBS, the weekly inflation measured through the Sensitive Price Index (SPI) with base 2000-2001=100 covering 17 urban centres and 53 essential items; however, declined by 0.15 percent during the week.

The group-wise analysis of the behaviour of prices of 53 essential items shows that the SPI witnessed an decrease of 0.09pc and 0.11pc, respectively, for households in the two lower income brackets (up to Rs3,000 and Rs3,001-5,000).

For the households in the income brackets of Rs5,001-Rs12,000, the increase in the SPI was in the range of 0.14 pc, while for those in the income group of over Rs12,000, the inflation registered a growth of 0.16pc.

Comparing with the corresponding week last year, the SPI registered an increase of 9.69pc during the period under review.