SPI increases by 1.35% after three weeks

February 04, 2022 (MLN): After three weeks decline, the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) for the combined group witnessed an increase of 1.35% WoW for the week ended February 03, 2022, weekly data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) showed on Friday.

As per the PBS inflation report, this increase was mainly on account of an upsurge in the price of essential food items.

The combined index clocked in at 169.37 compared to 167.11 on January 27, 2022.

Similarly, the year-on-year trend also observed a surge of 19.53% when the index was recorded at 141.70 a year ago, on February 04, 2021.

Out of the 51 monitored items, the average price of 22 items registered an increase in the week that include tomatoes (90.13%), chicken (10.50%), garlic (5.67%), bananas (2.47%) and mustard oil (2.38%). Meanwhile, the prices of non-food items LPG increased by 1.54% and energy saver by 1.06% during a week.

On the other hand, the average price of 06 items decreased weekly including potatoes that witnessed a drop of 6.06%, onions by 3.59%, eggs by 3.53%, sugar by 0.83%, pulse mash by 0.48% and pulse moong by 0.19% whereas the prices of 23 items registered no change during the week.

The weekly SPI percentage change by income groups showed that SPI increased across all quantiles ranging between 1.23% and 1.60%.

The lowest income group saw a weekly rise of 1.54% while the highest income group recorded a jump of 1.23%.

On a yearly basis, analysis of SPI change across different income segments showed that SPI increased across all quantiles ranging between 17.63% and 21.46%.

Yearly SPI for the lowest income group increased by 21.46% while the highest income group recorded an increase of 19.60%.

The average price of sona urea stood at Rs1,994 per 50 kg bag which is 1.08% lower than last week’s price and 15.09% higher when compared to last year.

Going by the PBS report, the average cement price was recorded at Rs735 per 50 kg bag, depicting a decline of 0.16% WoW, while increasing by 23.26% YoY.

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