Weekly inflation up by 1.53%

April 08, 2022 (MLN): The weekly Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) for the combined consumption group recorded a jump of 1.53% for the week ended on April 07, 2022, mainly due to an increase in the prices of essential food items, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported Friday.

The combined index clocked in at 174.45 compared to 171.82 on March 31, 2022.

Similarly, the year-on-year trend observed a surge of 17.87% when the index was recorded at 148 a year ago, on April 08, 2021.

Out of the 51 monitored items, the average price of 22 items registered an increase in the week including tomatoes (52.75%), onions (27.34%), bananas (12.24%), garlic (2.80%), beef (2.74%), mutton (2.70%), cooking oil 5 litre (2.29%), salt powdered (1.70%), vegetable ghee 1 kg (1.35%) and LPG (2.14%).

Meanwhile, 08 commodities witnessed a decline in prices on a WoW basis that include chillies powdered (3.29%), chicken (2.92%), potatoes (0.91%), wheat flour (0.68%), gur (0.54%), pulse mash (0.33%), sugar (0.09%) and pulse moong (0.01%). The prices of 21 items remained stable.

The weekly SPI percentage change by income groups showed that SPI jumped across all quantiles, ranging between 1.39% and 1.85%.

The lowest income group saw a weekly rise of 1.85% while the highest income group recorded an upsurge of 1.39%.

On a yearly basis, analysis of SPI change across different income segments showed that SPI increased across all quantiles ranging between 16.13% and 18.47%.

Yearly SPI for the lowest income group increased by 16.12% while the highest income group recorded an increase of 18.47%.

The average price of sona urea stood at Rs2,066 per 50 kg bag which is around 2.73% higher than last week’s price and 18.17% higher when compared to last year.

Going by the PBS report, the average cement price inched up by 0.61% WoW to Rs870 per 50 kg bag, while increasing by 41.69% YoY.

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