Weekly inflation surges by 0.82pc

ISLAMABAD: The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) based weekly inflation for the week ended on June 24, 2021 for the combined consumption group witnessed an increase of 0.82 percent as compared to the previous week while it went 15.29 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 149.14 on June 24, 2021 compared to 147.92 on June 17, 2021 while the index was recorded at 129.36 a year ago, on June 25, 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, out of 51 items, prices of 21 (41.2%) items increased, 07 (13.7%) items decreased and 23 (45.1%) items remained constant.
The SPI for the current week ended on 24th June, 2021 recorded an increase of 0.82% in the prices of tomatoes (14.56%), chicken (11.43%), LPG (8.64%), onions (8.38%), potatoes (3.37%), garlic (2.52%), vegetable ghee 1-kg (1.53%), cooking oil (1.41%) and vegetable ghee 2.5-kg (1.24%) with joint impact of (0.76%) into the overall SPI for combined group of (0.82%).
On the other hand, decrease in the prices of pulse Moong (3.79%), bananas (2.54%), pulse gram (0.71%), Gur (0.66%), pulse Mash (0.45%), pulse Masoor (0.26%) and sugar (0.12%) was observed.
According to the PBS data, the year on year trend depicts increase of 15.29% with most of the items increased mainly electricity for Q1 (61.62%), chilie powder (57.57%), petrol (48.21%), diesel (40.04%), mustard oil (35.57%), gents sandal (33.37%), LPG (32.31%), eggs (27.90%), gents sponge chappal (25.13%), vegetable ghee 1-kg (24.81%) and match box (23.44%), while a major decrease was observed in the prices of tomatoes (26.03%), pulse Moong (24.15%), garlic (16.79%), potatoes (15.81%), onions (1.03%), salt (0.89%) and pulse Masoor (0.50%).
The weekly SPI percentage change by income groups showed that SPI increased across all quantiles ranging between 0.67 percent and 0.91 percent. The lowest income group witnessed a weekly increase of 0.67 percent while the highest income group recorded an increase of 0.91 percent.
On a yearly basis, analysis of SPI change across different income segments showed that SPI increased across all quantiles ranging between 13.72 percent and 16.95 percent. Yearly SPI for the lowest income group increased by 16.95 percent while the highest income group recorded an increase of 15.20 percent. – TLTP