ISLAMABAD: Weekly inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), rose 0.37 per cent for the combined consumption group in the week ended March 5, 2026.
The SPI for the week under review increased to 335.09 points from 333.86 points recorded in the previous week, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported on Friday.On a year-on-year (YoY) basis, however, the SPI registered an increase of 4.7 per cent.
The SPI, with base year 2015-16 = 100, monitors price movements of 51 essential items across 17 urban centres, covering all expenditure groups.The SPI for the lowest consumption group (up to Rs17,732) remained unchanged at 323.48 points.
However, the SPI for the consumption groups of Rs17,733-22,888, Rs22,889-29,517, Rs29,518-44,175 and above Rs44,175 increased by 0.09 per cent, 0.16 per cent, 0.26 per cent and 0.53 per cent, respectively.
During the week, out of 51 monitored items, prices of 13 items (25.49 per cent) increased, 11 items (21.57 per cent) decreased, while 27 items (52.94 per cent) remained stable.Major commodities registering week-on-week increases included chicken (10.46 per cent), LPG (5.61 per cent), bananas (3.85 per cent), petrol (3.06 per cent), diesel (1.84 per cent), garlic (1.23 per cent), beef (0.66 per cent), mutton (0.65 per cent), pulse mash (0.51 per cent), lawn printed (0.43 per cent), gur (0.30 per cent) and mustard oil (0.24 per cent).
On the other hand, commodities that witnessed a decline in prices included tomatoes (10.04 per cent), eggs (8.13 per cent), onions (6.08 per cent), potatoes (5.09 per cent), wheat flour (2.4 per cent), pulse gram (0.50 per cent), pulse moong (0.43 per cent) and cooking oil (5 litre) (0.37 per cent).
On a YoY basis, notable increases were observed in gas charges for Q1 (29.85 per cent), wheat flour (26.13 per cent), electricity charges for Q1 (17.33 per cent), LPG (16.89 per cent), chillies powder (15.2 per cent), beef (12.36 per cent), firewood (11.40 per cent), powdered milk (10.16 per cent), mutton (9.32 per cent), tomatoes (9.02 per cent), gur (8.51 per cent) and rice basmati broken (6.18 per cent).
However, significant annual declines were recorded in potatoes (53.76 per cent), onions (26.1 per cent), eggs (24.93 per cent), garlic (22.25 per cent), chicken (21.70 per cent), pulse gram (21.37 per cent), salt powder (12.52 per cent) and pulse masoor (10.71 per cent).
