Higher food, electricity prices push weekly SPI up 0.69pc

KARACHI: Weekly inflation increased 0.69 with the annualised number up 30.82 percent during the seven-day period ended August 10, mainly on account of rise in food and electricity prices.

The sensitive price indicator (SPI) crossed the 30 percent mark after a lull of only 6 weeks, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) data showed on Friday.

The PBS attributed the increase in SPI to rising prices of chilli powder (3.72 percent), powdered milk (3.65 percent), pulse mash (3.13 percent), garlic (2.39 percent), sugar (2.30 percent), chicken (2.27 percent), salt (1.84 percent), electricity for Q1 (1.75 percent), and eggs (1.74 percent).

On the other hand decrease was observed in the prices of vegetable ghee 1kg (1.59 percent), LPG (0.79 percent), cooking oil (0.78 percent), mustard oil (0.48 percent) and vegetable ghee 2.5kg (0.10 percent).

For the week under review, SPI was recorded at 273.43 points against 271.56 points registered last week and 209.01 points recorded during the week ended August 11, 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 29 (56.87 percent) items increased, 5 (9.80 percent) items decreased and prices of 17 (33.33 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, electricity, wheat flour, and sugar went up; vegetable ghee decreased; whereas prices of long cloth, and firewood remained unchanged.

A woman buying chicken from a meat shop in district central said that she saw a rider from the deputy commissioner office take Rs10 to handover a list of live broiler chicken and meat to the shop owner. Instead of displaying the list, the shop owner hid the list in a box. “When I demanded to see the list, it showed that chicken meat should be sold for Rs570/kg but the man was selling it for Rs600/kg,” she complained.

According to the PBS data, average price of live broiler chicken stands at Rs418.92/kg, up from Rs409.61/kg last week, and Rs252.56/kg last year.

Prices of commodities have multiplied exponentially, particularly since the 2018 election. This has compromised people’s access to food and other basic necessities.

During the week ended August 9, 2018, the price of a 20kg wheat flour bag was Rs665, whereas now it stands at Rs2,830.23/20kg. This shows a jump of 326 percent in 5 years.

As per this week’s data, PBS recorded an increase of 30.82 percent in YoY SPI, on account of rising prices of wheat flour (131.81 percent), cigarettes (109.57 percent), gas charges for Q1 (108.38 percent), tea (95.19 percent), broken basmati rice (84.09 percent), chilli powder (72.94 percent), rice irri-6/9 (72.74 percent), sugar (67.90 percent), chicken (65.87 percent), gur (58.93 percent), gents sponge chappal (58.05 percent), potatoes (57.02 percent), and tomatoes (53.66 percent).

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 29.62, 27.46, 32.79, 34.13, and 32.25 percent respectively.