SPI declines 0.63 percent as chicken prices slide

KARACHI: Sensitive price indicator (SPI) for the week ended May 27, 2021 decreased 0.63 percent week-on-week for the combined income group, while rising 16.34 percent year-on-year, the lowest increase after nine weeks, data showed on Friday.

Inflation report released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) said the decrease was mainly on account of drop in food prices, especially chicken. Prices of chicken dropped 14.49 percent to Rs278.32 from Rs325.50 last week.

The drop in prices helped the highest quintile of spenders the most at negative 0.76 percent.

Other kitchen items that registered decline included onions (10.61 percent), bananas (6.35 percent), garlic (3.07 percent), potatoes (1.67 percent), eggs (0.88 percent), pulse moong (0.78 percent), sugar (0.69 percent), pulse mash (0.58 percent) and wheat flour (0.10 percent).

Arif Habib Limited said the YoY increase was the lowest in nine-weeks.

The YoY trend was affected by increase in prices of chilli powder (129.95 percent), electricity for Q1 (61.62 percent), eggs (55.60 percent), diesel (38.03 percent), mustard oil (34.76 percent), gents sandal (33.37 percent), petrol (32.96 percent), matchbox (31.64 percent), wheat flour (27.74 percent) and chicken (25.83 percent).

The worst YoY impact was felt by those spending up to Rs17,732. For this quintile, SPI was up 19.27 percent YoY and down 0.48 percent WoW.

SPI is computed on weekly basis to assess the price movements of essential commodities at shorter interval of time so as to review the price situation in the country. It comprises of 51 essential items and the prices are collected from 50 markets in 17 cities of the country.

Inflation for the second quintile went down 0.57 percent from 149.90 points to 150.76 points in the week ended May 27, 2021. For this consumption group, YoY inflation was up 16.32 percent.

The group spending Rs22,889-29,517 saw WoW decrease of 0.58 percent and YoY spike of 15.61 percent in inflation.

SPI dropped 0.62 percent WoW and went up 15.85 percent YoY for the consumption group spending Rs29,518-44,175.

During the week, prices of 12 items increased, 10 decreased, while prices of 29 items remained unchanged.

Increase was recorded in the prices of LPG (3.36 percent), tomatoes (2.76 percent), pulse masoor (2.25 percent), gur (1.68 percent), beef (1.46 percent), pulse gram (1.35 percent) and mutton (1.32 percent).