Wheat flour price pushes SPI up 0.27pc WoW

KARACHI: Weekly inflation increased by 0.27 percent week-on-week and 48.02 percent year-on-year, official data showed on Friday, as the price of wheat flour surged to Rs2,757.32 per 20kg bag during the week ending May 11.

The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) attributed the rise in sensitive price indicator (SPI) to the increase in prices tomatoes (6.32 percent), gur (3.41 percent), wheat flour (2.76 percent), prepared tea (2.66 percent), potatoes (2.14 percent), cooked beef (2.12 percent), cooked daal (1.98 percent), powdered milk (1.91 percent), eggs (1.83 percent), broken basmati rice (1.42 percent), pulse masoor (1.19 percent), beef (1.18 percent), and washing soap (1.04 percent).

Decrease was observed in the prices of onions (9.40 percent), chicken (2.25 percent), LPG (1.51 percent), garlic (1.39 percent), bananas (0.68 percent), pulse gram (0.13 percent), and mustard oil (0.05 percent).

Fahad Rauf, head of research at Ismail Iqbal Securities said that SPI went up mainly because of an increase in the prices of chicken and wheat flour. According to news reports, wheat flour prices have mainly due to increase in the price of wheat four.

As highlighted in the previous week, wheat flour prices are increasing because of a wheat shortage being faced by the flour mills on account of lower government supply. News reports suggest that 144 flour mills in Rawalpindi and Islamabad have shutdown, and the shortage is expected to continue for at least another week.

“We expect May 2023 CPI (consumer price index) to come around 38 percent YoY vs 36.4 percent in April 2023,” Rauf noted.

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 23 (45.09 percent) items increased, 7 (13.73 percent) items decreased and prices of 21 (41.18 percent) items remained unchanged.

Wheat flour, that holds 6.1372 percent weight in the SPI basket increased by Rs74.1 or 2.76 percent WoW and by Rs1,386.91 or 101.20 percent YoY to stand at Rs2,757.32/20kg bag.

Wheat flour prices have been increasing for three weeks now.

PBS data showed that among the 17 cities part of thedata, the residents of Rawalpindi paid the highest average price for wheat flour at Rs3,319.94/20kg bag, up by Rs199.98 from last week’s price of Rs3,119.96/20kg bag.

It was followed by Islamabad, where average price was Rs3,286.22 up by Rs159.82 from last week’s Rs3,126.4/20kg bag.

City-wise breakdown from highest to lowest showed that the average price of a 20kg wheat flour bag in Peshawar was Rs3,266.32 up from Rs3,066.30; in Bannu it was Rs3,016.03 up from Rs2,916.00; Quetta it was Rs2,969.99 up from Rs2,939.99; Karachi it was Rs2,850.56 down from Rs2,799.04; Khuzdar it was stable at Rs2,800.00; Hyderabad stable at Rs2,786.64; Lahore Rs2,725.23 up from Rs2619.47; Gujranwala Rs2,600 up from Rs2,533; Sialkot Rs2,660 up from Rs2,467; Sargodha stable at Rs2,533; Larkana stable at Rs2,500; Sukkur at Rs2,500 up from Rs2,440; Multan at Rs2,470.54 up from Rs2,461.61; Bahawalpur Rs2,466 up from Rs2,400.00; and Faisalabad at Rs2,440 up from Rs2,315.

A decrease in the price of wheat was recorded only in Karachi by the PBS.

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 43.67, 47.61, 46.96, 46.99, and 49.43 percent respectively.