SPI rises 4.18% YoY on sugar, gas, wheat prices | The Express Tribune
Rs134 billion has been made by sugar profiteers. PHOTO: PIXABAY KARACHI: The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), which gauges short-term inflation trends based on essential commodities, recorded a year-on-year (YoY) increase of 4.18% for the week ended November 6, 2025, according to data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Friday. On a week-on-week…
Rs134 billion has been made by sugar profiteers. PHOTO: PIXABAY
KARACHI:
The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), which gauges short-term inflation trends based on essential commodities, recorded a year-on-year (YoY) increase of 4.18% for the week ended November 6, 2025, according to data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Friday.
On a week-on-week (WoW) basis, however, prices fell 0.59%, offering modest relief to consumers amid ongoing price volatility in food and energy markets. The SPI, computed weekly to monitor price movement of 51 essential items across 50 markets in 17 cities, reflects consumption patterns across five income quintiles.
All quintiles recorded declines in weekly inflation, ranging from -1.04% for the lowest income group to -0.44% for the highest, signalling broad-based moderation across income brackets.
The most significant weekly fall was seen in tomato prices, which plunged 37.93%, followed by onions (-4.88%), garlic (-3.23%), pulse gram (-1.58%) and chicken (-0.68%). Prices of sugar (-0.64%), gur (-0.60%), pulse masoor (-0.55%), and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) (-0.15%) also registered declines.
Overall, out of the 51 tracked items, 18 (35.29%) became costlier, 12 (23.53%) saw price reductions, while 21 (41.18%) remained unchanged.
Conversely, egg prices rose 2.40%, while bananas got costly by 2.32%. Prices of firewood (1.61%), diesel (1.12%), beef (0.93%), tea prepared (0.92%) and petrol (0.91%) also increased during the week.
Essential staples such as bread (0.55%), wheat flour (0.34%), powdered milk (0.31%) and cooking oil (5-litre tin) (0.21%) experienced mild upward adjustments.
Compared with the same week of last year, the SPI showed a 4.18% increase, indicating a sharp slowdown in annual inflation compared to the double-digit rates observed for most of 2024 and early 2025.
The most notable yearly increases were recorded in ladies’ sandals (55.62%), sugar (43.67%), gas charges for Q1 (29.85%), wheat flour (19.50%), gur (18.88%), firewood (14.25%), beef (14.09%) and vegetable ghee (up to 11.53%).
Meanwhile, significant declines were observed in garlic (-33.54%), pulse gram (-29.82%), electricity charges for Q1 (-26.26%), potatoes (-22.32%), tomatoes (-19.69%), tea (-17.79%), pulse mash (-15.52%) and chicken (-15.16%).
