April 01, 2022 (MLN): The weekly Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) for the combined consumption group witnessed an increase of 0.53% for the week ended on March 31, 2022, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported Friday.
As per the PBS inflation report, this surge was mainly on account of an increase in the price of essential food items.
The combined index clocked in at 171.82 compared to 170.92 on March 24, 2022.
Similarly, the year-on-year trend observed a surge of 16.79% when the index was recorded at 147.12 a year ago, on April 01, 2021.
Out of the 51 monitored items, the average price of 24 items registered an increase in the week that include Tomatoes (41.01%), Onions (22.74%), Bananas (4.75%), Cooking Oil 5 litre (2.07%), Rice IRRI-6/9 (1.72%) and Pulse Masoor (1.11%).
Meanwhile, 07 commodities witnessed a decline in prices on a WoW basis, including Chicken (8.93%), Eggs (2.11%), Garlic (1.49%), Gur (1.09%), LPG (0.58%), Sugar (0.20%) and Rice Basmati Broken (0.18%).
The weekly SPI percentage change by income groups showed that SPI jumped across all quantiles, ranging between 0.38% and 0.91%.
The lowest income group saw a weekly rise of 0.91% while the highest income group recorded an upsurge of 0.38%.
On a yearly basis, analysis of SPI change across different income segments showed that SPI increased across all quantiles ranging between 14.61% and 17.56%.
Yearly SPI for the lowest income group increased by 14.61% while the highest income group recorded an increase of 17.56%.
The average price of sona urea stood at Rs2,011 per 50 kg bag which is around 1.90% higher than last week’s price and 14.83% higher when compared to last year.
Going by the PBS report, the average cement price inched up by 0.38% WoW to Rs865 per 50 kg bag, while increasing by 41.30% YoY.
