Daily Times

The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) based inflation increased by 0.49 percent for the week ended on May 12.

According to the data released by Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Friday, inflation on a year-on-year basis increased to 15.85 percent.

The weekly inflation for the lowest income group (Q1) witnessed an increase of 0.94 percent, while it went up 13.93 percent on a year-on-year (YoY) basis for the same income group. For the other four income groups, the weekly inflation increased from 0.41 percent (Q5) to 1.12 percent (Q4), while it went up from 14.20 percent (Q2) to 16.94 percent (Q5) on a year-on-year (YoY) basis.

According to the PBS, the combined index was at 172.63 on May 12, 2022 as compared to 171.78 on May 5, 2022 while the index was recorded at 149.01 a year ago on May 13, 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 28 (54.90 percent) items increased, prices of 06 (11.77 percent) items decreased, and prices of 17 (33.33 percent) items remained stable.

The SPI for the current week recorded an increase in the prices of food items, including wheat flour (41.78pc), chicken (12.13pc), potatoes (7.04pc), eggs (5.08pc), pulse Masoor (4.79pc), onions (4.74pc), pulse gram (2.29pc), pulse Mash (2.05pc), mustard oil (1.97pc), mutton (1.64pc), and tea prepared (1.16pc); and non-food items including cigarettes (2.62pc) and match box (1.31pc) with joint impact of (1.96pc) into the overall SPI for combined group of (0.49pc).

On the other hand, a decrease was observed in the prices of tomatoes (12.01pc), electricity for Q1 (10.66pc), bananas (5.87pc), firewood (0.43pc), sugar (0.15pc) and LPG (0.11pc).

According to the PBS data, the year-on-year trend depicts an increase of 15.85pc, including onions (160.81pc), tomatoes (122.92pc), LPG (97.34pc), garlic (83.51pc), cooking oil 5 litre (59.78pc), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (59.46pc), vegetable ghee 1 kg (58.43pc), mustard oil (58.27pc), pulse Masoor (52.01pc), washing soap (39.79pc), 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), pulse Moong (25.81pc), potatoes (20.71pc), electricity charges for Q1 (14.56pc), bananas (14.24pc) and sugar (11.80pc).