Weekly inflation slips 0.07 percent as flour & wheat prices come down

ISLAMABAD: The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) based weekly inflation for the week ended on September 23, 2021 for the combined consumption group witnessed a decrease of 0.07 percent as compared to the previous week while it went 13.88 percent up on a year-on-year (YoY) basis.
According to data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Friday, the combined index was at 157.19 on September 23, 2021 as compared to 157.30 on September 16, 2021 while the index was recorded at 138.03 a year ago on September 24, 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 20 (39.21%) items increased, prices of 10 (19.61%) items decreased and prices of 21 (41.18%) items remained constant.
The SPI for the current week recorded a decrease in the prices of bananas (7.87%), onions (4.69%), garlic (2.12%), pulse Moong (2.11%), pulse Mash (1.70%), wheat flour bag (1.60%), pulse gram (1.27%), pulse Masoor (0.27%) and rice Irri and potatoes (0.18%) each was observed.
On the other hand, an increase was observed in the prices of tomatoes (14.21%), tea Lipton (1.73%) and eggs (1.69%) with a joint impact of (0.09%) into the overall SPI for the combined group of (-0.07%).
According to the PBS data, the year-on-year trend depicts increase of 13.88 percent with most of the items increased, mainly electricity for Q1 (57.92%), LPG (52.90%), chicken (44.39%), vegetable ghee 1-kg (40.14%), vegetable ghee 2.5-kg (38.49%), cooking oil 5 litre (38.16%), mustard oil (37.22%), chillies powder (35.71%), gents sandal (33.37%), eggs (28.83%) and gents sponge chappal (25.13%), while a major decrease was observed in the prices of tomatoes (37.83%), pulse Moong (28.31%) and potatoes (26.89%).
The weekly SPI percentage change by income groups showed that SPI across all quantiles ranged between -0.03 percent and -0.15 percent. The lowest income group witnessed a weekly decrease of 0.15 percent while the highest income group recorded a decrease of 0.03 percent.
On a yearly basis, analysis of SPI change across different income segments showed that SPI increased across all quantiles ranging between 12.97 percent and 16.25 percent. Yearly SPI for the lowest income group increased by 16.25 percent while the highest income group recorded an increase of 13.52 percent. – TLTP