Prices of essential items increase by 11.72 percent: PBS

Prices of essential items increase by 11.72 percent: PBS

KARACHI: The prices of essential items increased by 11.72 percent by week ended March 07, 2019 when compared with the same week last year, according to data released by Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Friday.

According to Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) all the income groups had witnessed inflation for the period.

The PBS computes the weekly SPI with base 2007-2008=100 covering 17 urban centers and 53 essential items for all income groups / quintiles and combined.

The statistics have shown that price of tomatoes posted 308 percent growth to Rs128.42 per kilogram for the week under review as compared with Rs31.42/kg in the corresponding week of the last year.

The price of LPG cylinder grew by 19 percent for the period. While prices of High Speed Diesel, Petrol and Kerosene Oil witnessed increase in their prices by 13.13 percent, 5.57 percent and 6.8 percent, respectively.