Pakistan has massively increased petroleum prices up to 103 per cent during past one year, according to official statistics released on Friday.
The country increased the price of High Speed Diesel (HSD) by 103 per cent on year on year (YoY) basis by week ended March 30, 2023. Similarly, the price of petrol jacked up by 81 per cent during the period under review, according to Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).
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The bureau said that the inflation based on Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) increased by 45.36 per cent on YoY by week ended March 31, 2023 over the week ended March 31, 2022.
The year on year trend depicts increase of 45.36 per cent, Cigarettes (165.88 per cent), Onions (127.07 per cent), Wheat Flour (123.22 per cent), Gas Charges for Q1 (108.38 per cent), Diesel (102.84 per cent), Tea Lipton (98.08 per cent), Eggs (96.67 per cent), Bananas (94.89 per cent), Rice Basmati Broken (83.65 per cent), Petrol (81.17 per cent), Rice Irri-6/9 (79.17 per cent), Pulse Moong (67.85 per cent) and Potatoes (56.44 per cent).
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While decrease is observed in the prices of Tomatoes (10.88 per cent) and Chillies Powdered (9.56 per cent).
The SPI for the current week ended on March 30, 2023 recorded decrease of 0.36 per cent. Decrease is observed in the prices of food items, Onions (15.10 per cent), Chicken (11.96 per cent), Tomatoes (10.26 per cent), Cooking Oil 5 litre (1.24 per cent), Vegetable Ghee 1 Kg (1.07 per cent), Vegetable Ghee 2.5 Kg (0.77 per cent), Pulse Gram (0.42 per cent), Pulse Moong (0.22 per cent) and Mustard Oil (0.17 per cent), non-food items, LPG (1.35 per cent) and Firewood (0.35 per cent).
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On the other hand major increase is observed in the prices of Bananas (7.54 per cent), Eggs (7.22 per cent), Mutton (2.39 per cent), Sugar (2.12 per cent), Wheat Flour (1.91 per cent), Tea Lipton (1.79 per cent), Georgette & Shirting (1.32 per cent) each, Milk Fresh (1.12 per cent) and Beef (1.02 per cent).
During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 23 (45.10 per cent) items increased, 11 (21.57 per cent) items decreased and 17 (33.33 per cent) items remained stable.
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The PBS computes SPI on weekly basis to assess the price movement of essential commodities at shorter interval of time so as to review the price situation in the country. SPI comprises of 51 essential items collected from 50 markets in 17 cities of the country.
