Daily Times

The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) based weekly inflation increased for the third straight week by 0.04 percent; however, it decreased 15.23 percent on a yearly basis. According to data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Friday, on a year-on-year basis, inflation decreased to 15.23 percent from 15.90 percent recorded a week earlier. The SPI-based weekly inflation registered an increase for the week ended on March 3, 2022, the third week in a row, after registering an increase of 0.51 percent and 0.22 percent in the preceding weeks.

The weekly inflation for the lowest income group (Q1) witnessed an increase of 0.12 percent, while it went 11.86 percent up on a year-on-year (YoY) basis for the same group. Overall for the other four income groups, the weekly inflation surged from -0.03 percent (Q5) to 0.13 percent (Q3), while it went up from 12.87 percent (Q2) to 16.61 percent (Q5) on a year-on-year (YoY) basis.

According to the PBS, the combined index was at 170.53 on March 3, 2022 as compared to 170.47 on February 24, 2022 while the index was recorded at 147.99 a year ago on March 4, 2021. 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 with base 2015-16=100 comprises 51 essential items and the prices are being collected from 50 markets in 17 cities of the country for all expenditure groups/quintiles and combined. During the week under review, out of 51 items, prices of 19 (37.25pc) items increased, prices of 13 (25.50pc) items decreased, and prices of 19 (37.25pc) items remained stable.

The SPI for the current week recorded an increase in the prices of food items including chicken (10.47pc), bananas (7.06pc), vegetable ghee 1-kg (4.08pc), vegetable ghee 2.5-kg (3.69pc), mustard oil (2.98pc), cooking oil 5-liter (2.19pc), and powdered milk (1.11pc); and non-food items, including LPG (9.45pc) and Georgette (1.06pc) was observed with joint impact of (0.87pc) into the overall SPI for combined group of (0.04pc).

On the other hand, a decrease was observed in the prices of tomatoes (27.06pc), eggs (7.18pc), diesel (6.43pc), petrol (6.23pc), garlic (3.27pc), pulse Moong (0.96pc), pulse Masoor (0.69pc), onions (0.40pc), wheat flour (0.35pc), sugar (0.27pc), potatoes (0.20pc), pulse Mash (0.16pc) and Gur (0.10pc).

According to the PBS data, the year on year trend depicts an increase of 15.23pc and the items whose prices increased included tomatoes (241.95pc), LPG (71.48pc), garlic (57.88pc), mustard oil (53.22pc), cooking oil 5-litre (44.91pc), vegetable ghee 1-kg (44.00pc), vegetable ghee 2.5-kg (43.21pc), washing soap (36.95pc), pulse Masoor (34.81pc), petrol (33.42pc), beef (25.05pc) and diesel (23.75pc), while a major decrease was observed in the prices of chillies powdered (36.30pc), pulse Moong (30.23pc), eggs (8.70pc), sugar (8.19pc), potatoes (7.38pc) and onions (6.49pc).