According to data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), a steep increase in the prices of essential food items such as chicken and petrol has pushed weekly inflation to 47.23 per cent year-on-year for the week ending on April 19. Inflation has risen 0.51 per cent week-on-week, compared to a 0.60 per cent decrease in the previous week.
The rising inflation has been attributed to the increase in sensitive price indicators such as LPG, potatoes, petrol, tea, gur, matchbox, bread, chicken, bananas, broken basmati rice, and rice irri-6/9. However, a major decrease was observed in the prices of tomatoes, onions, garlic, sugar, wheat flour, mustard oil, cigarettes, and pulse gram.
For the week under review, the SPI (Sensitive Price Index) was recorded at 251.83 points, against 250.56 points registered last week and 171.05 points recorded during the week ended April 21, 2022. Fahad Rauf, head of research at Ismail Iqbal Securities, said that SPI experienced an increase mainly driven by a 4 per cent and 2 per cent increase in the prices of petrol and chicken, respectively.
During the week, the government raised petrol prices by Rs10 per litre, bringing the new price to Rs282 per litre, due to the impact of rising international oil prices and rupee devaluation. Chicken prices have also risen mainly due to increased seasonal demand in Ramadan and the arrival of Eid.
Prices of commodities have risen significantly over the last year on account of devaluation as well as the massive floods that devastated food crops across most of the fertile plains of the country. Different weights are assigned to various commodities in the SPI basket, and prices of commodities have risen on a year-on-year basis. The PBS compiles the SPI by collecting prices of 51 essential items from 50 markets in 17 cities of the country.
During the week under review, out of 51 items, prices of 29 (56.86 per cent) items increased, eight (15.69 per cent) items decreased, and prices of 14 (27.45 per cent) items remained unchanged. The PBS data attributed the year-on-year rise in SPI to the jump in the prices of goods such as cigarettes, wheat flour, gas charges for Q1, tea, diesel, potatoes, bananas, eggs, petrol, broken basmati rice, rice irri-6/9, pulse moong, and plain bread. However, a decrease was observed in the prices of tomatoes and chilli powder.
