Pakistan’s Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) rose 0.21% in the week ended 1 October 2026 from the preceding week, according to a Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) release dated 1 October. The year-on-year change was 11.53% against the week ended 2 October 2025. The comparison periods differ: the weekly rate uses 24 September 2026, while the annual rate uses 2 October 2025. The combined index, with 2015–16=100 as its base, reached 370.46, compared with 369.69 a week earlier and 332.17 a year earlier. An index level is not a price-change rate: 370.46 is the level in index points, while 0.21% is the weekly movement.

The bulletin also counted how many of its 51 essential items moved. Compared with the previous week, prices rose for 20 items, fell for 10 and were unchanged for 21. Chicken recorded the largest weekly increase, at 7.25%. Garlic rose 1.85%, gram pulse 1.30%, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) 1.17% and eggs 0.72%. Smaller increases were reported for rice, onions and some other entries. These item-level percentages describe price movements between the relevant weeks; they do not, by themselves, show each item’s contribution to household spending or to the combined index.

Diesel fell 3.43% over the week, while bananas declined 1.52%, sugar 1.05% and potatoes 0.96%. The coexistence of increases and decreases is consistent with the combined SPI’s modest 0.21% weekly rise. Individual-item changes should not be confused with the national combined rate: the indicator summarizes different price movements using its index weights. PBS also reported positive weekly changes in each of five expenditure groups: 0.19% for the first quintile, 0.20% for the second, 0.21% for the third, 0.22% for the fourth and 0.21% for the fifth.

For the year-on-year comparison, the same five groups recorded increases of 9.00%, 10.76%, 9.40%, 9.81% and 11.99%, respectively; the combined rate was 11.53%. Among individual items, onions were 114.20% higher than a year before, LPG 66.59% higher, the first-quarter electricity tariff 58.59% higher, diesel 44.50% higher and petrol 44.05% higher. Tomatoes were 45.52% lower, potatoes 39.54% lower, sugar 21.95% lower and eggs 17.47% lower. A large percentage change for one item does not automatically translate into the same contribution to the overall index; weights and the index’s defined coverage matter.

PBS describes SPI as a weekly measure designed to monitor shorter-term movements in prices of essential commodities. Its published series covers 51 items observed in 50 markets across 17 cities and reports results for expenditure groups or quintiles as well as a combined total. The 2015–16-base price-statistics methodology describes the index framework and weights; the price statistics are linked to consumption information from the 2015–16 Household Integrated Economic Survey. Weekly SPI is not a substitute for the monthly Consumer Price Index and does not cover every good and service bought by households. The national indicator is bounded by the listed items and markets, and should not be read as a claim that every household experienced precisely the same change in its own cost of living.