ISLAMABAD, Oct 31: The Sensitive Price Index (SPI) rose by 0.28 per cent during the week ending October 27, over the previous week, according to the weekly price data released by the Federal Bureau of Statistics here on Monday.

The data indicated that the overall SPI recorded a positive growth during the week under review owing to a massive increase of 29.56 per cent in the prices of tomatoes across the country. A moderate increase was also recorded in the prices of onion and potatoes during the week under review.

The group-wise analysis of the behaviour of prices of 53 essential items prevailing in 17 towns of Pakistan shows the SPI witnessed increases by 0.29 per cent and 0.30 per cent for households in 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 0.30 per cent. While for the households in the income group basket of over Rs12,000, the inflation registered a growth of 0.24 per cent over the previous week.

Comparing with the corresponding week last year, the SPI registered an increase of 9.13 per cent during the week under review.

According to the FBS data, the prices of 11 items went up during the period under review as compared to previous week. They are: Tomatoes (29.56 per cent), Eggs (0.95 per cent), sugar (1.71 per cent), bananas (0.95 per cent), onions (0.82 per cent), potatoes (0.91 per cent), firewood (0.67 per cent), chicken farm (0.14 per cent), beef (0.29 per cent), wheat (0.09 per cent) and masoor pulse washed (0.04 per cent).

The week under report also saw a decrease in average prices of 13 essential items. These included: Gur (1.43 per cent), LPG 11-kg cylinder (0.72 per cent), garlic (0.39 per cent), gram pulse washed (0.29 per cent), red chillies powdered (0.29 per cent), wheat flour (0.15 per cent), rice basmati broken (0.25 per cent), mash pulse washed (0.22 per cent), moong pulse washed (0.15 per cent), cooking oil tin 2.5 litre (0.09 per cent), tea 250kg packet (0.07 per cent), bath soap (0.07 per cent) and vegetable ghee loose (0.02 per cent).