The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), which measures weekly inflation, saw a rise of 0.45% for the combined consumption group for the week that concluded on January 26. According to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), the SPI for the reviewed week was 221.54 points as opposed to 220.54 points for the previous week. The SPI for the whole consumption group in the week under review increased by 32.57% as compared to the same week of the previous year. The weekly SPI with the base year 2015–16 covers 51 necessities for all spending categories throughout 17 urban centres. The SPI for the lowest consumption group up to Rs17,732 saw a rise of 0.41% and increased from 228.90 points last week to 229.83 points this week.

The SPI increased by 0.38%, 0.42%, 0.41%, and 0.54%, respectively, for the consumption groups from Rs17,732-22,888, Rs22,889-29,517, Rs29,518-44,175 and beyond Rs44,175. Out of 51 goods, 25 (49.02%) had price increases over the week, six (11.76%) had price decreases, and 20 (39.22%) had unchanged pricing. Potatoes (4.47%), chicken (1.63%), gur (0.90%), sugar (0.85%), powdered milk (0.26%), and 2.5kg of vegetable ghee (0.08%) were among the commodities with weekly price decreases. The items whose average prices increased were: onions (5.51%), rice irri-6/9 (4.51%), tomatoes (4.18%), bananas (3.57%), rice basmati broken (3.56%), garlic (3.47%), wheat flour (1.81%), pulse gramme (1.74%), pulse moong (1.38%), and non-food items and LPG (5.29%).

The commodities that had a decline in price on a year-over-year basis included gur (0.89%), electricity for Q1, and powdered chillies (15.32%). The commodities that saw price increases year over year included onions (532.23%), chicken (102.09%), eggs (69.48%), tea Lipton (63.92%), rice basmati broken (61.23%), diesel (57.34%), pulse moong (57.16%), rice irri-6/9 (57.05%), bananas (53.95%), salt powdered (49.50%), wheat flour (48.71%), bread (46.53%), and petrol (45.21%).

Credit : Independent News Pakistan-WealthPk