Weekly inflation report stating essential commodities prices issued

According to data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, the SPI for the current week ended on April 8 2021 recorded an increase of 1% or more in the prices of Chicken (11.21%), Potatoes (9.98%), Tomatoes (7.51%) and Bananas (4.99%) with the joint impact of (0.85%) into the overall SPI for the combined group of (0.60%).

On the other hand, a decrease was observed in the prices of Sugar (3.07%), LPG (2.28%), Garlic (2.27%), Eggs (1.41%), Firewood (1.32%), Electricity for Q1 (1.28%), Wheat Flour Bag (0.69%), Pulse Maash (0.46%), Pulse Gram (0.33%), Onions (0.18%), Pulse Masoor (0.13%) and Rice Broken (0.11%).

The year on year trend depicts an increase of 18.43% with most of the items increased mainly Chilies Powder (139.64%), Chicken (100.00%), Electricity for Q1 (67.03%), Tomatoes (55.43%), Eggs (40.90%), Gents Sandal (33.37%), Match Box (30.47%), Mustard Oil (30.21%), Gents Sponge Chappal (25.13%) and Vegetable Ghee (21.88%). While a major decrease was observed in the prices of Garlic (38.82%), Onions (38.15%).Pulse Moong (16.47%), Pulse Gram (6.69%) and Pulse masoor (6.01%).

CPI inflation General, increased by 9.1% on a year-on-year basis in March 2021 as compared to an increase of 8.7% in the previous month and 10.2% in March 2020. On a month-on-month basis, it increased by 0.4% in March 2021 as compared to an increase of 1.8% in the previous month and an increase of 0.02% in March 2020.

SPI inflation on YoY increased by 18.7% in March 2021 as compared to an increase of 11.9% a month earlier and an increase of 11.8% in March 2020. On an MoM basis, it increased by 5.7% in March 2021 as compared to an increase of 3.1% a month earlier and a decrease of 0.3% in March 2020.

Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) is computed on weekly basis to assess the price movements of essential commodities at a shorter interval of time to review the price situation in the country. SPI comprises 51 essential items and the prices are being collected from 50 markets in 17 cities of the country.

The Wholesale Price Index (WPI) is the price of a representative basket of wholesale goods. Some countries use WPI changes as a central measure of inflation.