Weekly inflation rises 0.29pc as SPI climbs to 374.61 points

Weekly inflation measured by the Sensitive Price Indicator rose 0.29 percent in the week ended November 5, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics reported on Friday, taking the index to 374.61 points from 373.51 points in the previous week.

The figures cover the combined consumption group, the aggregate the bureau publishes across the income brackets it tracks. Against the same week a year earlier, the indicator was up 12.31 percent.

The Associated Press of Pakistan carried the index levels and the year-on-year figure. Aaj News reported the same 0.29 percent weekly increase.

The SPI is issued every week and tracks the retail prices of a fixed set of essential items, with prices collected from selected markets in different cities. It is read as an early signal of how food and fuel costs are moving between the monthly Consumer Price Index releases.

The bureau also publishes separate SPI readings for lower and higher income groups, which show how the same basket weighs on households with different spending patterns.

The reports available did not carry an item-wise breakdown for the week, so which commodities drove the 0.29 percent increase was not stated. The year-on-year figure of 12.31 percent is the third comparison the bulletin carries: the week-on-week change, the change from the corresponding week of the previous year, and the movement against the preceding month's average.

The weekly bulletin follows the trend of recent months, in which the index has moved in small increments rather than in sharp jumps. The bureau compiles the data from price quotations gathered at the start of each week, and publishes the index each Friday for the week that closes on the preceding Thursday.

The next SPI reading, for the week ending November 12, is due on November 13.