The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) based inflation increased by 1.10 percent during the week ended on March 24 after registering a decline in the preceding week.
According to the data released by Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), inflation on a year-on-year basis increased to 15.67 percent from 15.12 percent recorded a week earlier.
The weekly inflation for the lowest income group (Q1) witnessed an increase of 1.24 percent, while it went 13.22 percent up on a year-on-year (YoY) basis for the same group. Overall for the other four income groups, the weekly inflation increased from 0.95 percent (Q5) to 1.31 percent (Q2), while it went up from 14.32 percent (Q2) to 16.58 percent (Q5) on a year-on-year (YoY) basis.
According to the PBS, the combined index was at 170.92 on March 24, 2022 as compared to 169.06 on March 17, 2022 while the index was recorded at 147.76 a year ago on March 25, 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 (49.03%) items increased, prices of 08 (15.69%) items decreased, and prices of 18 (35.29%) items remained stable.
The SPI for the current week recorded an increase in the prices of food items including chicken (8.47%), vegetable ghee 2.5-kg (4.59%), bananas (4.04%), cooking oil (2.55%), potatoes (1.56%), vegetable ghee 1-kg (1.12%), and curd (1.02%); and non-food items including lawn (1.17%) and shirting (1.03%), with joint impact of 0.91 percent into the overall SPI for combined group of 1.10 percent.
On the other hand, a decrease was observed in the prices of garlic (4.94%), tomatoes (4.17%), eggs (4.13%), LPG (1.59%), gur (1.03%), sugar (0.92%), pulse gram (0.36%) and pulse Masoor (0.22%). According to the PBS data, the year on year trend depicts an increase of 15.67 percent and the items whose prices increased included LPG (71.57%), garlic (71.50%), mustard oil (57.99%), vegetable ghee 2.5-kg (55.63%), vegetable ghee 1-kg (55.39%), cooking oil 5-litre (53.53%), tomatoes (52.11%), washing soap (39.17%). —TLTP
