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Petrol, diesel and tomatoes offer relief
Aftab Maken
ISLAMABAD: The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI)-based weekly inflation increased by 0.28 percent during the week ended August 6, 2026, for the combined consumption group, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported on Friday.
According to PBS data, the combined SPI for the week under review rose to 358.60 points from 357.61 points recorded in the previous week ended July 30, 2026. On a year-on-year basis, the SPI increased by 9.29 percent, up marginally from the 9.05 percent recorded a week earlier.
The weekly SPI, with base year 2015-16=100, tracks price movements of 51 essential items collected from 50 markets across 17 cities to gauge inflation on a short-term basis.
Prices that rose
The steepest week-on-week increases were recorded in onions, which jumped 10.14 percent, followed by chicken (farm broiler, live) at 9.19 percent. Other notable increases included pulse gram (2.43 percent), chilies powder (1.01 percent), mustard oil (0.99 percent), Tea Lipton (0.57 percent), wheat flour (0.52 percent), vegetable ghee 1kg (0.37 percent), firewood (0.32 percent) and washing soap (0.08 percent).
Out of 51 items tracked, prices of 20 items (39.22 percent) increased during the week, while 22 items (43.13 percent) remained unchanged.
Prices that fell
On the other hand, nine items (17.65 percent) recorded a decline. Tomatoes led the fall, dropping 6.82 percent, followed by LPG (1.90 percent), diesel (1.66 percent), bananas (1.20 percent), petrol (0.63 percent), sugar (0.51 percent), bread plain (0.29 percent), and eggs and potatoes, which each declined 0.09 percent.
Year-on-year picture
Compared to the corresponding week of last year (August 7, 2025), the SPI showed a sharper divergence across items. Tomatoes were up a massive 178.03 percent year-on-year, followed by onions (84.65 percent), wheat flour (80.02 percent), LPG (53.83 percent), diesel (34.44 percent) and petrol (25.97 percent). Other significant annual increases were recorded in gents sponge chappal (16.69 percent), chilies powder (16.37 percent), mutton (16.12 percent), bananas (15.11 percent), beef (13.81 percent) and plain bread (9.37 percent).
Conversely, some items became markedly cheaper compared to a year ago: potatoes fell 30.65 percent, pulse gram declined 17.86 percent, sugar dropped 17.60 percent, chicken fell 15.65 percent, salt powder declined 14.09 percent, pulse masoor fell 13.02 percent, eggs dropped 9.66 percent and pulse moong declined 6.25 percent.
Impact across income groups
The SPI for the lowest income group (up to Rs17,732 monthly expenditure) rose 0.43 percent week-on-week to 347.11 points, with a year-on-year increase of 9.51 percent — the steepest weekly rise among all quintiles, indicating that lower-income households bore a disproportionate share of this week’s inflationary pressure.
By comparison, the highest income group (above Rs44,175) saw a smaller weekly increase of 0.20 percent, though its year-on-year change stood at 9.00 percent. The second-lowest quintile (Rs17,733–22,888) recorded the highest year-on-year change at 9.87 percent.
Ten-week trend
PBS data shows the combined SPI has fluctuated over the past ten weeks, moving from 357.54 points in late May to 358.60 points by early August, with several weeks of decline in between — including a 0.98 percent drop in early July and a 0.91 percent fall in late July — interrupted by a sharp 1.40 percent spike in mid-July driven largely by tomatoes, chicken, LPG, diesel and petrol.
The latest uptick suggests that while fuel prices have eased slightly this week, the surge in perishable food items — particularly onions and poultry — continues to keep short-term inflationary pressure elevated for Pakistani households.
