Daily Times

The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) based inflation increased by 0.43 percent for the week ended on April 28 after dipping 1.28 percent and 0.68 percent in the previous two weeks.

According to the data released by Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Friday, inflation on a year-on-year basis increased to 15.86 percent from 15.42 percent recorded a week earlier.

The weekly inflation for the lowest income group (Q1) witessed an increase of 0.46 percent, while it went up 13.29 percent on a year-on-year (YoY) basis for the same group.

For the other four income groups, the weekly inflation increased from 0.38 percent (Q3 and Q4) to 0.45 percent (Q5), while it went up from 14.09 percent (Q2) to 17.02 percent (Q5) on a year-on-year (YoY) basis.

According to the PBS, the combined index was at 171.78 on April 28, 2022 as compared to 171.05 on April 21, 2022 while the index was recorded at 148.27 a year ago on April 29, 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 25 (49.02pc) items increased, prices of 04 (7.84pc) items decreased, and prices of 22 (43.14pc) items remained stable.

The SPI for the current week recorded an increase in the prices of food items, including tomatoes (42.85pc), onions (13.11pc), eggs (3.67pc), chicken (2.02pc), pulse Masoor (1.46pc), vegetable ghee 1-kg (1.26pc), cooked Daal (1.18pc), vegetable ghee 2.5-kg (1.15pc) and rice Irri-6/9 (1.08pc) and non-food items, including toilet soap (2.06pc) and cigarettes (2.03pc), with joint impact of (0.80pc) into the Overall SPI for combined group of (0.43pc).

On the other hand, a decrease was observed in the prices of wheat flour (9.96pc), gur (1.27pc), sugar (1.04pc) and pulse gram (0.34pc).

According to the PBS data, the year-on-year trend depicts an increase of 15.86 percent, including tomatoes (154.16pc), onions (137.52pc), LPG (86.92pc), garlic (82.58pc), cooking oil 5-litre (59.70pc), vegetable ghee 2.5-kg (59.55pc), vegetable ghee 1-kg (58.43pc), mustard oil (57.54pc), pulse Masoor (44.59pc), washing soap (39.33pc), petrol (37.42pc) and diesel (29.63pc).

On a year-on-year basis, major decrease was observed in the prices of chillies powdered (39.50pc), potatoes (26.88pc), pulse Moong (26.31pc), sugar (10.94pc), wheat flour (10.59pc), eggs (6.93pc), electricity charges for Q1 (4.37pc) and bananas (1.42pc).