Islamabad, August 12, 2023 – The recent rise in petroleum prices has caused the costs of essential items to surge, as reported by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).
This increase, which compares prices to the same period last year, has led to a 31 percent jump in inflation based on the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) for the week ending on August 10, 2023.
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The trend of rising prices for essential goods began when the government announced a significant hike in petroleum product prices for the first half of August 2023. On a year-on-year basis, the data shows various items experiencing notable price hikes.
Among the highest are Wheat Flour (131.81%), Cigarettes (109.57%), Gas Charges for Q1 (108.38%), and Tea Lipton (95.19%). In contrast, there have been decreases in the prices of a few items, such as Onions (28.77%), Electricity for Q1 (16.63%), Pulse Masoor (16.04%), and 1 kg Vegetable Ghee (1.93%).
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The SPI, which uses a base of 2015-16=100 and covers 17 urban centers along with 51 essential items across all expenditure groups, has been calculated.
For the week ending on August 10, 2023, the SPI increased by 0.69% when compared to the previous week (August 3, 2023). The most noticeable price increases were seen in food items, including Chilies Powder (3.72%), Powdered Milk (3.65%), Pulse Mash (3.13%), and Chicken (2.27%).
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Non-food items like Electricity for Q1 also saw a significant rise (1.75%). Conversely, there were some reductions in prices, with a decrease of 1.59% observed in the price of 1 kg Vegetable Ghee, as well as declines in LPG (0.79%), Cooking Oil (0.78%), and Mustard Oil (0.48%).
During the past week, out of the 51 items tracked, prices for 29 items (56.87%) went up, 05 items (9.80%) saw decreases, while the prices of 17 items (33.33%) remained stable.
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