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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsPakistan’s weekly inflation figure is the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), compiled by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS). It tracks price movements for a defined basket of essential items, rather than the full range of goods and services households buy. PBS publishes changes from the previous week and from the corresponding week a year earlier.
What Pakistan’s weekly inflation figure measures
The SPI is designed to show short-term price movement in essential commodities. PBS’s current series covers 51 items in 50 markets across 17 cities and uses a 2015–16=100 base. The basket and market sample make the measure useful for tracking selected everyday prices, but it is not a complete record of every price paid by every household.
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PBS’s Price Statistics Section collects and compiles prices and calculates price indices. Its Price Statistics page describes SPI as a weekly measure intended to assess essential-commodity price movements at shorter intervals.
How PBS collects prices
PBS says field price collection uses Computer-Assisted Personal Interviews (CAPI). Its 2015–16 price-statistics methodology describes collectors visiting selected shops, supervisory checks in markets, and scrutiny at headquarters when prices appear doubtful or vary abnormally. These are documented collection and checking procedures; they should not be taken to mean that every shop or transaction is covered or that the figures are independently audited.
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How to read the reported percentage changes
Each weekly report gives two distinct comparisons:
- Week over week: how the SPI changed compared with the previous week.
- Year over year: how it changed compared with the corresponding week one year earlier.
The report also lists prices and movements for individual items and results for consumption quintiles Q1 through Q5, alongside a combined figure. Quintiles group households by consumption level. These breakdowns show that reported movement can differ across groups; the combined SPI is not a promise that every household’s costs changed by the same percentage.
PBS’s Price FAQs state that the bureau uses a weighted Laspeyres formula for price indices generally. The available public material does not set out every SPI-specific aggregation step in sufficient detail to treat that general description as a complete formula for the weekly index. The 2015–16 methodology discusses household consumption evidence and consumption quintiles used in rebasing, but the precise SPI weight mechanics should not be inferred beyond what PBS publishes for the series and its reports.
How SPI differs from CPI and WPI
The SPI is not Pakistan’s sole or broadest measure of consumer inflation. PBS describes the Consumer Price Index (CPI) as a monthly consumer-price measure, with national, urban and rural versions under the 2015–16 base. SPI is a separate weekly indicator focused on essential items. The Wholesale Price Index (WPI) tracks wholesale price movement monthly.
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| Measure | Frequency | What it tracks |
|---|---|---|
| SPI | Weekly | Price movement for a selected basket of essential commodities |
| CPI | Monthly | Consumer prices; PBS publishes national, urban and rural versions |
| WPI | Monthly | Wholesale price movement |
These indicators answer different questions: SPI offers a more frequent view of selected essential-item prices, while CPI provides the broader monthly consumer-price measure.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.A dated example from a PBS report
For the week ended 11 March 2026, PBS reported that the combined SPI rose 1.89% compared with the previous week and 6.44% compared with the corresponding week a year earlier. In that report, week-over-week changes ranged from 0.66% for Q1 to 2.49% for Q5; Q2, Q3 and Q4 recorded 0.94%, 1.12% and 1.50%, respectively. These are historical figures, not the latest reading. Consult the PBS report for the week ended 11 March 2026 for that release, and check PBS’s latest publication for a current rate.
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