ISLAMABAD, Jan 28: The Sensitive Price Index (SPI) showed a decline of 0.70 per cent during the week ended Jan 27, 2006, resulting into minor reductions in prices of some kitchen items.

The data, however, indicated that the commonly used items like wheat flour, sugar, gur, pulses and ghee recorded an impressive growth during the week under review, according to the weekly data released here on Saturday.

The overall decline in SPI for the income group up to Rs3,000 was 0.38 per cent, for Rs3,001-Rs,5000 (0.49 per cent), for Rs5,001-12,000 (0.64 per cent), and for the income group above Rs12,000 (0.7 per cent).

The average prices of 11 items increased, 13 items rates declined and 29 items stayed unchanged during the week under review.

The items recorded increase in their prices included sugar (4.09pc), moong pulse washed (3.14pc), mash pulse washed (3.08pc), gur (1.05pc), gram pulse washed (1.03pc), bananas (0.91pc), masoor pulse washed (0.61pc), firewood (0.20pc), wheat flour average quality (0.15pc), vegetable ghee loose (0.12pc) and mustard oil (0.09pc).

The items which recorded decrease in their prices included tomatoes (36.91pc), egg farm (17.26pc), chicken farm (5.68pc), onions (2.71pc), LPG 11 kg cylinder (0.59pc), garlic (0.53pc), potatoes (0.45pc), red chillies powdered (0.39pc), wheat (0.08pc), cooking oil tin (0.37pc) and vegetable ghee tin (0.02pc).