ISLAMABAD:The prices of various food items went down during the week ending on September 2, as compared to the previous week, the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) data released by Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) Friday revealed.
According to the data, the prices of food items that witnessed decrease included bananas, prices of which decreased by 5.35 per cent whereas prices of tomatoes declined by 1.57 per cent on Week-on-Week (WoW) basis.
Likewise, the prices of Moong pulse, potatoes and rice (Basmati broken) declined by 1.43 per cent, 0.55 percent and 0.39 per cent. Among non-food items, the prices of LPG decreased by 2.74 per cent, high speed diesel by 1.32 per cent and petrol by 1.25 per cent.
On Year-on-Year basis the prices of potatoes decreased by 28.01 per cent whereas that of tomatoes and Moong pulse declined by 27.42 per cent and 20.39 per cent respectively.
On the other hand, the food items that witnessed increase in prices on WoW basis included chicken, the prices climbed up by 13.17 per cent whereas the prices of onion went up by 6.64 percent.
The prices of garlic increased by 5.37 per cent, Masoor plus by 4.20 per cent, eggs by 3.23 per cent, wheat flour by 2.39 per cent, tea (prepared) by 1.72 per cent whereas the prices of sugar increased by 1.67 per cent.
On year-on-year basis, the prices of chicken increased by 50.23 percent, vegetable ghee (1kg) by 38.88 per cent, mustard oil by 36.98 per cent, vegetable ghee (2.5kg) by 36.47 per cent, chillies powder by 35.71 per cent, cooking oil (5 litre) by 34.98 per cent whereas the prices of eggs went up by 28.63 per cent.
Among non-food items, the prices LPG increased by 50.57 per cent, electricity charges for Q1 by 46.55 per cent, gents sandal by 33.37 per cent, gents sponge chappal by 25.13 percent whearas the prices of washing soap increased by 21.47 per cent.
It is pertinent to mention here that the overall SPI based weekly inflation for the week ended on September 2 recorded an increase of 0.67 per cent compared to the previous week.
The weekly SPI with base year 2015-16=100 is covering 17 urban centers and 51 essential items for all expenditure groups.
During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 17 (33.33%) items increased 08 (15.69%) items decreased and 26 (50.98%) items remained constant.