ISLAMABAD: Prices of essential items have soared by 38.42 per cent by week ended February 16, 2023 on year on year (YoY) basis, official data revealed on Friday.
According to data of Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) the year on year trend depicts an increase of 38.42 per cent.
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The items recorded in increase are: Onions (433.44 per cent), Chicken (101.86 per cent), Diesel (81.36 per cent), Eggs (81.22 per cent), Rice Irri-6/9 (74.12 per cent), Rice Basmati Broken (73.05 per cent), Petrol (69.87 per cent), Pulse Moong (67.98 per cent), Bananas (67.68 per cent), Tea Lipton (63.89 per cent), Pulse Gram (56.93 per cent), Bread (55.36 per cent), Pulse Mash (53.42 per cent), LPG (52.68 per cent) and Cigarettes (50.02 per cent).
While decrease is observed in the prices of Tomatoes (65.30 per cent), Electricity for Q1 (7.50 per cent) and Chillies Powdered (7.42 per cent).
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SPI is computed 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.
The SPI for the current week ended on February 16, 2023 recorded an increase of 2.89 per cent.
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Major increase is observed in the prices of food items, Cooking Oil 5 litre (8.65 per cent), Vegetable Ghee 1 Kg (8.02 per cent), Bananas (8.01 per cent), Chicken (7.49 per cent), Vegetable Ghee 2.5 Kg (6.76 per cent), non-food items, Petrol (8.82 per cent), Diesel (6.49 per cent) and Cigarettes (6.18 per cent).
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On the other hand decrease is observed in the prices of Tomatoes (14.27 per cent), Onions (13.48 per cent), Eggs (4.24 per cent), Garlic (2.10 per cent) and Wheat Flour (0.10 per cent).
During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 34 (66.67 per cent) items increased, 05 (9.80 per cent) items decreased and 12 (23.53 per cent) items remained stable.
