The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) for the current week ended on August 22, 2024, depicted an increase of 16.69 percent on a year-on-year basis, according to data issued by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics on Friday.
According to Topline Securities, the year-on-year (YoY) increase is the lowest after two years. The YoY increase was mainly due to Gas Charges for Q1 (570 percent), Onions (79.51 percent), Pulse Gram (51.34 percent), Tomatoes (28 percent), Powered Milk (26 percent), Beef (23.89 percent), and Pulse Moong (23.88 percent), while major decrease was observed in the prices of Wheat Flour (36 percent), Chilies Powder (17.78 percent), Electricity Charges for Q1 (16.91 percent), Cooking Oil 5 Litre (10.50 percent), Petrol (10 percent), Sugar (9.62 percent), Diesel (9.22 percent), Rice Basmati Broken (8.88 percent), Vegetable Ghee 2.5 Kg (7.63 percent), Vegetable Ghee 1 Kg (6.51 percent) and Mustard Oil (4.00 percent).
The SPI for the current week decreased by 0.10 percent over the previous week. Major decrease was observed in the prices of Tomatoes (21.96 percent), Wheat Flour (2.77 percent), Bananas (2 percent), Onions (1.70 percent), Sugar (1.43 percent), Chicken (1.25 percent), Pulse Masoor (1 percent) and Bread (0.61 percent).
On the other hand, increase was observed in the prices of Eggs (6.10 percent), Pulse Gram (6.05 percent), Potatoes (2.41 percent), Cooked Daal (0.89 percent), Mustard Oil (0.63 percent), Beef (0.47 percent), Milk Fresh (0.39 percent) and LPG (0.16 percent).
During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 21 (41.18 percent) items increased, 9 (17.64 percent) items decreased and 21 (41.18 percent) items remained stable.