Daily Times

The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) based weekly inflation for the week ended on October 21, 2021 for the combined consumption group has witnessed a massive increase of 1.38 percent, the third in a row, while it went 14.48 percent up on a year-on-year (YoY) basis.

Earlier during the previous weeks ended on October 14 and October 07, the weekly inflation went up by 0.20 percent and 1.21 percent, respectively.

According to data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Friday, the combined index was at 161.46 on October 21, 2021 as compared to 159.26 on October 14, 2021 while the index was recorded at 141.04 a year ago on October 22, 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 under review, out of 51 items, prices of 29 (56.86pc) items increased, prices of 07 (13.73pc) items decreased and prices of 15 (29.41pc) items remained stable.

The SPI for the current week recorded an increase of 1.38pc. Increase in the prices of tomatoes (41.63pc), diesel (10.06pc), petrol (8.19pc), LPG (7.11pc), mustard oil (2.23pc), vegetable ghee 1kg (1.91pc), bread plain (1.84pc), garlic (1.82pc), washing soap (1.72pc), potatoes (1.57pc), cooking oil 5-litre (1.50pc), bananas (1.40pc), Georgette (1.32pc), eggs (1.31pc), and vegetable ghee 2.5-kg (1.25pc) was observed with joint impact of (1.36pc) into the overall SPI for combined group of (1.38pc). On the other hand, a decrease was observed in the prices of chicken (2.45pc), pulse Moong (1.09pc), gur (0.96pc), onions (0.78pc), pulse Masoor (0.37pc), wheat flour bag (0.18pc) and pulse gram (0.02pc).

According to the PBS data, the year on year trend depicts increase of 14.48pc with LPG (75.02pc), electricity for Q1 (61.11pc), mustard oil (46.49pc), vegetable ghee 1-kg (44.25pc), cooking oil 5-litre (40.78pc), chillies powdered (33.43pc), and petrol (32.22pc) prices going up, while major decrease was observed in the prices of pulse Moong (32.05pc), tomatoes (30.44pc), onions (28.30pc), potatoes (21.87pc) and pulse Mash (1.59pc).