Weekly inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), recorded an increase of 0.37 percent for the combined consumption group during the week ended March 5, 2026, as compared to the corresponding week of last year.
The SPI for the week under review increased to 335.09 points from 333.86 points recorded in the previous week, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported Friday. On a year-on-year basis, however, the SPI registered an increase of 4.70 percent.
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 Rs 17,732) remained unchanged at 323.48 points.
However, the SPI for consumption groups of Rs 17,733-22,888, Rs 22,889-29,517, Rs 29,518-44,175 and above Rs 44,175 increased by 0.09 percent, 0.16 percent, 0.26 percent and 0.53 percent, respectively.
During the week, out of 51 monitored items, prices of 13 items (25.49 percent) increased, 11 items (21.57 percent) decreased, while 27 items (52.94 percent) remained stable.
Major commodities registering week-on-week increases included chicken (10.46%), LPG (5.61%), bananas (3.85%), petrol (3.06%), diesel (1.84%), garlic (1.23%), beef (0.66%), mutton (0.65%), pulse mash (0.51%), lawn printed (0.43%), gur (0.30%) and mustard oil (0.24%).
On the other hand, the commodities that witnessed decline in prices included tomatoes (10.04%), eggs (8.13%), onions (6.08%), potatoes (5.09%), wheat flour (2.40%), pulse gram (0.50%), pulse moong (0.43%) and cooking oil 5 litre (0.37%).
On a year-on-year basis, notable increases were observed in gas charges for Q1 (29.85%), wheat flour (26.13%), electricity charges for Q1 (17.33%), LPG (16.89%), chilies powder (15.20%), beef (12.36%), firewood (11.40%), powdered milk (10.16%), mutton (9.32%), tomatoes (9.02%), gur (8.51%) and rice basmati broken (6.18%).
However, significant annual declines were recorded in potatoes (53.76%), onions (26.10%), eggs (24.93%), garlic (22.25%), chicken (21.70%), pulse gram (21.37%), salt powder (12.52%) and pulse masoor (10.71%).