ISLAMABAD: The weekly inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Index (SPI), posted an increase of 28.76 per cent for the combined income group on a year-on-year basis ending Dec 22 due to a massive surge in prices of both food and non-food items, according to data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Friday.

On a year-on-year basis, the items whose prices jumped the most included onions (482.30pc), chicken (67.42pc), tea Lipton (65.41pc), diesel (65.05pc), petrol (52.19pc), salt powdered (51.99pc), bananas (47.95pc), pulse moong (47.13pc), eggs (47.07pc), pulse gram (45.24pc) and mustard oil (40.97pc).

However, the SPI on a week-on-week basis slightly fell by 0.11pc for the week under review. This was mainly because oil prices slightly dropped while few vegetable prices also posted a slight decline.

The price of petrol dropped (4.45pc), diesel (3.20pc) and LPG (0.23pc), respectively. The WoW decline in inflation is mainly because of a drop in petroleum prices.The average price of tomatoes in the market ranges between Rs80 to Rs120 per kg while that of onions is in the range of around Rs230 per kg to Rs260, respectively.

Similarly, the potato price ranges between Rs60 per kg to Rs90.

In the food group, the items that saw the highest week-on-week increase in prices include chicken (9.86pc), pulse masoor (2.00pc), tea Lipton (1.72pc), rice Irri-6/9 (1.15pc) and wheat flour (1.12pc).

On the other hand, major decrease is observed in the prices of tomatoes (23.85pc), potatoes (10.53pc), eggs (1.54pc), sugar (1.04pc), bananas (0.80pc), vegetable ghee 1 Kg (0.53pc), onions (0.39pc), garlic (0.35pc) and vegetable ghee 2.5 Kg (0.22pc).

Published in Dawn, December 24th, 2022