ISLAMABAD: The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) witnessed a sharp increase of 1.09 percent ended on January 5, 2023 over the previous week on the back of a surge in the prices of essential commodities.
According to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, weekly inflation data released on Friday, the surge in SPI for the week ended on 5th January 2023 was due to increase observed in the prices of food items.
According to the PBS week-on-week increase of 1.09 percent led to an increase in chicken price (16.09 percent), rice basmati broken (5.16 per cent), wheat flour (4.87 per cent), rice irri-6/9 (3.45 per cent), bananas (2.97 per cent), onions (2.65 per cent), bread (1.24 per cent), salt powdered (1.07 per cent), and moong (1.02 per cent) over the previous year.
A decrease was noted in the prices of potatoes (4.61 per cent), eggs (1.31 per cent), tomatoes, (1.17 per cent), LPG (0.85 per cent), vegetable ghee 2.5kg (0.71 per cent), cooking oil 5 litre (0.32 per cent), sugar (0.24 per cent), vegetable ghee 1kg (0.11 per cent), and masoor (0.05 per cent).
According to the PBS, during the week, out of 51 items, prices of 23 items increased, whereas, nine items decreased and prices of 19 items remained stable.
The year-on-year increase of 29.60 percent in SPI led to increase of 30.60 per cent with onions (501.23 per cent), chicken (82.50 per cent), tea Lipton (65.41 per cent), diesel (60.63 per cent), eggs (50.51 per cent), salt powdered (49.50 per cent), petrol (48.21 per cent), moong (46.99 per cent), rice basmati broken (46.17 per cent), bananas (45.64 per cent), wheat flour (45.35 per cent) and rice irri-6/9 (43.11 per cent), whereas, decrease has been observed in the prices of chillies powdered (22.98 per cent), electricity for Q1 (13.96 per cent), and gur (1.11 per cent).
The SPI for the consumption group of Rs17,732, Rs17,732-22,888 increased by 1.13 percent, Rs22,889-29,517 by 1.23 percent, Q3 (Rs22,889 - 29,517) by 1.21 percent, Q4 (Rs29,518 - 44,175) by Rs1.19 percent, and (above Rs44,175) 0.9 percent.
The SPI is computed on a weekly basis to assess the price movement of essential commodities at shorter interval of time so as to review the price situation in the country. SPI comprises of 51 essential items collected from 50 markets in 17 cities of the country.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023