Wheat flour, food prices lift weekly inflation to 0.33 percent

KARACHI: Weekly inflation rose 0.33 percent in the week ended July 13, driven by higher food prices, especially wheat flour, official data showed on Friday.

The sensitive price indicator (SPI) based inflation increased to 28.96 percent year-on-year. The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) attributed the increase in the SPI to an increase in the prices of sugar (5.22 percent), wheat flour (4.23 percent), gur (3.68 percent), powdered salt (2.17 percent) and eggs (1.34 percent).

On the other hand major decrease was observed in the prices of bananas (12.18 percent), tomatoes (6.35 percent), onions (5.32 percent), LPG (2.17 percent), vegetable ghee 2.5kg (0.85 percent), pulse moong (0.70 percent), cooking oil 5 litre (0.51 percent), pulse gram (0.46 percent), vegetable ghee 1kg (0.36 percent), pulse masoor (0.18 percent) and chicken (0.13 percent).

For the week under review, SPI was recorded at 258.63 points against 257.79 points registered last week and 200.55 points recorded during the week ended July 14, 2022.

PBS compiles SPI via collecting prices of 51 essential items from 50 markets in 17 cities of the country. During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 21 (41.17 percent) items increased, 11 (21.58 percent) items decreased and prices of 19 (37.25 percent) items remained unchanged.

Different weightages are assigned to various commodities in the SPI basket. Commodities with the highest weights for the lowest quintile include milk (17.5449 percent), electricity (8.3627 percent), wheat flour (6.1372 percent), sugar (5.1148 percent), firewood (5.0183 percent), long cloth (4.2221 percent), and vegetable ghee (3.2833 percent).

Of these commodities, the price of milk, wheat flour, and sugar went up; vegetable ghee decreased; whereas prices of electricity, firewood, and long cloth remained unchanged. Prices of wheat flour, an essential daily use item, have been going up across the country, squeezing the budgets of already struggling households.

Average price of a 20kg wheat flour bag now stands at Rs2,862.64 compared to last week’s Rs2,746.36, and last year’s Rs1,245.50. In a week, wheat flour price has jumped up by Rs116.28 and in a year it has shot up by Rs1,617.14.

Wheat flour is the most expensive for the residents of Karachi, who are paying anywhere between Rs155-190/kg in different markets. Citizens of Karachi are paying Rs3,157.19/20kg, which is higher by Rs294.55 from the average national price.

City-wise breakdown of the PBS price statistics showed that after Karachi, residents of the twin cities, Islamabad and Rawalpindi paid the highest for wheat flour at Rs3,042.16 and Rs3,043.15.

Price of the essential commodity in other cities, from the highest to lowest was; Hyderabad Rs3,008.31; Sialkot Rs3,000; Khuzdar Rs2,900; Sukkur Rs2,880; Lahore Rs2,838.07; Larkana Rs2,832.51; Peshawar Rs2,780.98; Quetta Rs2,779.95; Multan Rs2,774.48; Sargodha Rs2,773; Gujranwala Rs2,760; Bahawalpur Rs2,746.67; Faisalabad Rs2,700; and Bannu Rs2,699.69.

For the groups spending up to Rs17,732; Rs17,733-22,888; Rs22,889-29,517; Rs29,518-44,175; and above Rs44,175; YoY SPI increased 29.65, 29.92, 31.13, 30.77, and 29.62 percent respectively.

The YoY trend depicts increase of 28.96 percent, on account of rising prices of wheat flour (129.84 percent), cigarettes (111.74 percent), gas charges for Q1 (108.38 percent), tea (101.56 percent), broken basmati rice (76.74 percent), rice irri-6/9 (73.88 percent), potatoes (61.67 percent), gents sponge chappal (58.05 percent), sugar (57.91 percent), chicken (56.06 percent), powdered salt (53.49 percent), gur (48.30 percent), and bread (46.86 percent).

Commodities that registered YoY decline in prices included onions (28.17 percent), electricity for Q1 (14.58 percent), pulse masoor (7.54 percent), diesel (5.82 percent), LPG (1.23 percent), and vegetable ghee 1kg (1.16 percent).