ISLAMABAD: The weekly inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Index (SPI), posted a year-on-year increase of 30.66 per cent for the combined income group for the period ending Dec 8 mainly due to surging food prices, according to data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Friday.

However, the SPI on a week-on-week basis rem­ained unchanged. This was mainly because of static oil prices while few vegetable prices posted a slight decline.

The average price of tomatoes in the market ranges between Rs160 to Rs200 per kg while that of onions is in the range of around Rs200 per kg to Rs250, respectively. Similarly, the potato price ranges between Rs90 per kg to Rs110.

In the food group, the items that saw the highest week-on-week increase in prices include onions (8.74pc), bananas (2.36pc), rice basmati broken (2.22pc), eggs (1.98pc), salt powdered (1.33pc) and sugar (1.17pc). In the non-food items, prices of LPG increased (2.47pc) and matchbox (1.95pc).

On the other hand, major decrease is observed in the prices of tomatoes (25.48pc), chicken (3.70pc), potatoes (3.68pc), pulse masoor (0.38pc), cooking oil 5 litre & vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (0.32pc) each, pulse gram (0.30pc) and vegetable ghee 1 Kg (0.28pc).

On a year-on-year basis, the items whose prices jumped the most included onions (422.57pc), diesel (64.57pc), tea Lipton (62.­61pc), salt powdered (57.­35pc), eggs (55.28pc), petrol (53.85pc), gents spo­nge chappal (52.21pc), ban­anas (50.­58pc), tomatoes (49.04pc), pulse gram (48.06pc), pulse moong (45.44pc), mustard oil (42.96pc) and pulse mash (39.98pc), respectively.

Published in Dawn, December 10th, 2022