Weekly inflation cut down 0.59pc

ISLAMABAD: The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) based weekly inflation for the week ended on June 10, 2021 for the combined consumption group, witnessed a decrease of 0.59 percent as compared to the previous week while it went 15.38 percent up on a year-on-year (YoY) basis.
According to data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), the combined index was at 147.51 compared to 148.38 on June 03, 2021 while the index was recorded at 127.85 a year ago, on June 11, 2020.
The SPI is computed on a weekly basis to assess the price movements of essential commodities at a shorter interval of time so as to review the price situation in the country. The SPI comprises 51 essential items and the prices are being collected from 50 markets in 17 cities of the country.
During the week under review, out of 51 items, prices of 14 (27.45 percent) items increased, 09 (17.66 percent) items decreased and prices of 28 (54.9 percent) items remained constant.
The SPI for the current week ended on 10th June, 2021 recorded a decrease of 0.59pc in the prices of chicken (16.19 percent), bananas (9.01 percent),pulse Moong (2.38 percent), pulse Mash (1.74 percent), LPG (1.66 percent), pulse gram (0.67 percent), potatoes (0.61 percent), sugar (0.13 percent) and wheat flour (0.11 percent) with joint impact of (-0.85 percent) into the overall SPI for combined group of (-0.59 percent).
On the other hand, an increase in the prices of onions (14.04 percent), tomatoes (8.06 percent), garlic (1.53 percent) and mutton (1.16 percent) was observed.
The year on year trend depicts increase of 15.38 percent with most of the items increased mainly chilies powder (82.05 percent), electricity for Q1 (61.62 percent), petrol (45.47 percent), diesel (37.83 percent), mustard oil (35.92 percent), eggs (34.08 percent), gents sandal (33.37 percent), gents sponge chappal (25.13 percent), LPG (24.08 percent), match box (23.44 percent) and vegetable ghee (22.62 percent), while a major decrease was observed in the prices of garlic (27.27 percent), pulse Moong (23.53 percent), potatoes (16.55 percent), onions (7.14 percent), chicken (1.52 percent), salt (0.89 percent) and pulse Masoor (0.61 percent).
The weekly SPI percentage change by income groups showed that SPI decreased across all quantiles ranging between 0.67 percent and 0.26 percent. The lowest income group witnessed a weekly decrease of 0.26 percent while the highest income group recorded a decrease of 0.67 percent.
On a yearly basis, analysis of SPI change across different income segments showed that SPI increased across all quantiles ranging between 14.2 percent and 17.9 percent. Yearly SPI for the lowest income group increased by 17.9 percent while the highest income group recorded an increase of 14.89 percent. – TLTP