March 11, 2022 (MLN): The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) based weekly inflation for the week ended on March 10, for the combined consumption group, increased for the fourth straight week by 0.52% as compared to the previous week, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported Friday.

As per the PBS inflation report, this marginal increase was mainly on account of an upsurge in the price of essential food items, washing soap, and energy saver.

The combined index clocked in at 171.41 compared to 170.53 on March 03, 2022.

Similarly, the year-on-year trend also observed a surge of 16.49% when the index was recorded at 147.14 a year ago, on March 11, 2021.

Out of the 51 monitored items, the average price of 20 items registered an increase in the week that include onions (10.86%), chicken (8.75%), bananas (4.49%), potatoes (2.38%), mustard oil (2.33%), vegetable ghee 1 kg (1.96%), washing soap (1.40%) and energy saver (1.32%).

Meanwhile, 09 commodities witnessed a decrease in prices on a WoW basis, including tomatoes (15.57%), garlic (3.94%), eggs (1.22%), gur (0.98%), sugar (0.73%), pulse mash (0.64%), pulse moong (0.39%), LPG (0.24%) and wheat flour (0.22%) and 22 items remained stable.

The weekly SPI percentage change by income groups showed that SPI increased across all quantiles, ranging between 0.48% and 0.57%.

The lowest income group saw a weekly rise of 0.48% while the highest income group recorded a decline of 0.49%.

On a yearly basis, analysis of SPI change across different income segments showed that SPI increased across all quantiles ranging between 13.48% and 17.36%.

Yearly SPI for the lowest income group increased by 13.48% while the highest income group recorded an increase of 17.36%.

The average price of sona urea stood at Rs1,929 per 50 kg bag which is around 1.12% higher than last week’s price and 10.17% higher when compared to last year.

Going by the PBS report, the average cement price was recorded at Rs787 per 50 kg bag, depicting an increase of 5.05% WoW, while increasing by 29.3% YoY.

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