Daily Times

The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) based weekly inflation for the week ended August 5, 2021 for the combined consumption group witnessed an increase of 0.12 percent as compared to the previous week, while it was 12.40 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 150.88 on August 05, 2021 as compared to 150.70 on July 29, 2021 while the index was recorded at 134.23 a year ago on August 6, 2020.

The SPI is computed on a weekly basis to assess 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 (33.33pc) items increased, 11 (21.56pc) items decreased and prices of 23 (45.1pc) items remained constant.

The SPI for the week ended on August 5, 2021 recorded an increase of 0.12pc with most of the items increased mainly garlic (4.19pc), LPG (3.67pc) and petrol (1.44pc) with joint impact of (0.18pc) into the overall SPI for combined group of (0.12pc).

On the other hand decrease in the prices of tomatoes (18.00pc), bananas (8.13pc), chicken (3.86pc), eggs (3.53pc), pulse moong (2.11pc), onions (1.37pc), potatoes (0.37pc), pulse mash (0.24pc), rice IRRI (0.16pc), wheat flour bag (0.10pc) and sugar (0.05pc) was observed.

According to the PBS data, the year-on-year trend depicts increase of 12.40pc with most of the items increased, mainly, electricity for Q1 (60.81pc), LPG (57.99pc), mustard oil (35.89pc), chillies powder (35.71pc), vegetable ghee 1-kg (33.89pc), gents sandal (33.37pc), vegetable ghee 2.5kg (32.45pc), cooking oil 5-liter (32.26pc), gents sponge chappal (25.13pc) and match box (21.51pc), while a major decrease was observed in the prices of potatoes (23.42pc), pulse Moong (20.73pc), tomatoes (4.19pc) and chicken (2.13pc).

The weekly SPI percentage change by income groups showed that SPI across all quantiles ranged between -0.10 percent and 0.20 percent. The lowest income group witnessed a weekly decrease of -0.10 percent while the highest income group recorded an increase of 0.20 percent.

On a yearly basis, analysis of SPI change across different income segments showed that SPI increased across all quantiles ranging between 11.56 percent and 15.79 percent. Yearly SPI for the lowest income group increased by 15.70 percent while the highest income group recorded an increase of 11.87 percent.