Daily Times

The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) based weekly inflation for the week ended on July01, 2021 for the combined consumption group witnessed an increase of 0.53 percent as compared to the previous week while it went 13.31 percent up on a year-on-year (YoY) basis.

According to data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Friday, the combined index was at 149.93 on July 01, 2021 as compared to 149.14 on June 24, 2021 while the index was recorded at 132.32 a year ago on July 2, 2020.

The SPI is computed on a weekly basis to assess the price movements of essential commodities at a shorter interval of time so as to review the price situation in the country. The SPI comprises 51 essential items and the prices are being collected from 50 markets in 17 cities of the country.

During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 17 (33.4%) items increased, 09 (17.6%) items decreased and 25 (49%) items remained constant.

The SPI for the current week ended on July 01, 2021 recorded an increase of 0.53% in the prices of tomatoes (33.27%), onions (15.40%), garlic (4.05%), LPG (3.14%), petrol (1.78%) and diesel (1.21%) with joint impact of (0.62%) into the overall SPI for combined group of (0.53%).

On the other hand, decrease in the prices of pulse Moong (3.45%), chicken (3.01%), bananas (2.42%), pulse Mash (1.30%), wheat flour (1.05%), pulse Masoor (0.79%), pulse gram (0.44%), firewood (0.43%) and sugar (0.04%) was observed.

According to the PBS data, the year on year trend depicts increase of 13.31% with most of the items increased mainly electricity for Q1 (61.62%), chili powder (45.88%), mustard oil (36.55%), gents sandal (33.37%), LPG (29.31%), eggs (25.92%), vegetable ghee 1 kg (25.82%), gents sponge chappal (25.13%), match box (23.44%) and vegetable ghee 2.5kg (23.09), while a major decrease was observed in the prices of pulse Moong (25.04%), tomatoes (17.32%), potatoes (15.49%), garlic (11.78%) and pulse Masoor (0.30%).

The weekly SPI percentage change by income groups showed that SPI increased across all quantiles ranging between 0.50 percent and 0.67 percent. The lowest income group witnessed a weekly increase of 0.67 percent while the highest income group recorded an increase of 0.50 percent.

On a yearly basis, analysis of SPI change across different income segments showed that SPI increased across all quantiles ranging between 12.53 percent and 16.70 percent. Yearly SPI for the lowest income group increased by 16.70 percent while the highest income group recorded an increase of 12.53 percent.