ISLAMABAD, July 14: The inflation based on weekly Sensitive Price Index (SPI) inched upwards following an increase in the cost of kitchen items.

There is a major spur in demand of certain food items before and during Ramazan. The weak price monitoring mechanism allows market manipulators to take advantage of the situation.

The worst sufferers of price hike in basic food items are the lower income groups, whereas the highest income group has faced the least amount of inflationary pressures during the week ending on July 12, 2012 compared to the previous week.

According to the data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) here on Saturday, the SPI inched upwards by 0.12 percent for combined income group compared to the previous week.

The SPI for lowest income group earning up to Rs8000 per month has increased by 0.15 per cent and the experts believe it was due to the fact that low income groups spend a major part of their incomes on food items.

The SPI increased by 0.14 per cent for both the income groups earning Rs8,001 to Rs12,000 and Rs12,001 and Rs18,000 per month during the week under review.

The inflationary impact of the market movements starts reducing as the upper middle class and the income groups earning between Rs18,001 and Rs35,000 per month the SPI improved by 0.12 percent.

For the highest income group earning more than Rs35,000 per month the SPI increase was a mere 0.10 percent.

11 out of 13 items that registered price increase related to food.

Prices of one of the most sought after kitchen item ‘onions’ in increased by 12.71 percent in a week, followed by potatoes with 5.51 percent.

The other items includes garlic, live farm chicken, milk powdered, mustard oil, washed moong pulse, washed gram pulse, shirting, loose vegetable ghee, washed mash pulse, wheat and coarse long cloth.

The week witnessed a decline in the prices of 13 items which are tomatoes, LPG, bananas, gur, tea, firewood, farm chicken egg, rice irri-6/9, washed masoor pulse, wheat flour, red chillies powder loose, basmati rice broken and sugar.

The prices of 27 items remained unchanged during the week these are plain bread medium size, beef, mutton, fresh milk, curd, packed cooking oil, packed vegetable ghee, rock salt powdered loose, cooked beef plate, cooked dal plate, tea prepared, cigarettes, lawn cloth, georgette cloth, gents sandal, gents spring chappal, ladies sandal, electric charges, gas charges, kerosene oil, energy saver 14 watts, washing soap, match box, petrol, diesel, telephone calls and bath soap.