ISLAMABAD, May 27: Prices of as many as 16, out of the 51 essential items included in the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) rose during the week ending May 23 as compared to the previous week (ending May 16).

Combined with a slight decrease in prices of 9 items, according to the Federal Bureau of Statistics data released here on Monday, the SPI registered an increase of 0.27 per cent during the week. With 2000-01 as the base year, the SPI at the end of the week stood at 104.06 denoting an increase of 4.06% during the current financial year.

The impact, as the analysis of prices collected from 17 cities of Pakistan indicated, was 0.15% on the lowest income households with incomes up to Rs3,000. The SPI for the income group in the range of Rs3001-5000 rose by 0.18%; for those in the range of Rs5001-12000 by 0.27% and for those above Rs12,000 by 0.37%.

The items which became dearer during the week under review compared to preceding week were:

Wheat (0.51%), wheat flour average quality (0.54%), rice basmati broken (0.43%), rice irri-6 (0.51%), moong pulse washed (0.03%), curd (0.45%), veg. ghee loose (0.66%), mustard oil (0.21%), potatoes (1.71%), tomatoes (5.93%), bananas (10.19%), garlic (2.12%), cooked dal plate (0.47%), lawn (0.40%), kerosene oil (1.03%), and farm chicken (11.33%).

The prices of following 9 items declined:

Masoor pulse washed (-0.35%), mash pulse washed (-0.24%), gram pulse washed (-0.12%), egg (farm) (-4.06%), sugar (-0.14%), gur (-0.05%), cooking oil (Habib) (-0.10%), onions (-9.95%), and red chilies (-0.79%).