ISLAMABAD, Feb 12: The wholesale price of commodities has increased by 7.44 per cent during the July-January period of the current fiscal year over the same period last year.

Official figures released here by Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) showed the wholesale price of commodities rose by 5.34 per cent during the month of January, 2007 over the same month last year.

The WPI measures changes in average ex-factory and wholesale prices of 425 items grouped into five broad categories. The categories include food items, raw materials, and fuel, lighting and lubricants, manufacturing and building materials.

The commodities, which recorded growth at the wholesale level in January 2007 in comparison to December 2006 are Food: Fresh fruits (16.64 per cent), mustard and rapeseed oil (7.90 per cent), moong (7.76 per cent), masoor (7.55 per cent), maize (6.71 per cent), vegetable ghee (6.44 per cent), cottonseed oil (6.16 per cent), sugar refined (4.58 per cent), chicken (2.95 per cent), cooking oil (2.84 per cent), dry fruits (2.47 per cent), gram split (2.01 per cent), bajra (1.76 per cent) and wheat and jowar (1.27 per cent each).

Among the industrial raw material, price of mustard/rapeseeds up (7.87 per cent), cottonseed (3.21 per cent), hides (1.88 per cent) and sugarcane (1.87 per cent); fire wood (2.54 per cent); chemicals (3.48 per cent), dying materials (1.10 per cent) and nylon yarn (1.07 per cent) and wires and cables (5.81 per cent).

The main commodities, which showed a decrease in their prices during January, 2007 over December, 2006 are Food: Tomatoes (71.22 per cent), potatoes (37.14 per cent), onion (23.55 per cent), eggs (20.45 per cent), vegetables (18.93 per cent), fish (2.80 per cent) and gur (2.31 per cent).And furnace oil declined by 12.65 per cent, motor sprit (6.94 per cent), diesel (1.26 per cent), blended yarn (2.87 per cent) and jute manufactures (1.39 per cent).