Tomato, onion push weekly SPI inflation up

KARACHI: Eid factor pushed up the prices of edibles, making weekly inflation rise 0.43 percent week-on-week and 15.86 percent year-on-year during the seven-day period ended April 28.

Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) data attributed the increase to rising prices of tomatoes (42.85 percent), onions (13.11 percent), eggs (3.67 percent), chicken (2.02 percent), pulse masoor (1.46 percent), vegetable ghee 1kg (1.26 percent), cooked daal (1.18 percent), vegetable ghee 2.5kg (1.15 percent), rice irri-6/9 (1.08 percent), toilet soap (2.06 percent), and cigarettes (2.03 percent). The joint impact of these commodities was 0.8 percent in the overall sensitive price indicator (SPI) for the combined group.

On the other hand, decrease was observed in the prices of wheat flour (9.96 percent), gur (1.27 percent), sugar (1.04 percent) and pulse gram (0.34 percent).

Analyst Fahad Rauf of Ismail Iqbal Securities in his note said SPI increased, “mainly due to increase in perishable food prices” as “tomato and onion prices registered significant increase ahead of Eidul Fitr”.

During the week under review, a kilo of tomatoes was sold for Rs80.57 on average, up Rs24.17 from last week’s Rs56.4/kg.

“We estimate April 2022 CPI (consumer price index) at 13.4 percent vs 12.7 percent in March 2022,” the note added.

PBS computes SPI inflation on a weekly basis to gauge the price movement of essential commodities at a shorter interval of time so as to review the price situation in the country. It comprises 51 essential items and the prices are collected from 50 markets in 17 cities of the country.

During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 25 items increased, four items decreased, whereas prices of 22 items remained unchanged.

SPI was recorded at 171.78 points against 171.05 points registered previously.

PBS data attributes different weightages to the commodities in the SPI basket. Commodities with the highest weights for the lowest quintile include milk (17.5449 points), electricity (8.3627 points), wheat flour (6.1372 points), sugar (5.1148 points), firewood (5.0183 points), long cloth (4.2221 points), and vegetable ghee (3.2833 points).

Of these commodities, WoW prices of milk and vegetable ghee increased; wheat flour and sugar decreased; and prices of electricity, firewood and long cloth remained the same.

Average price of a 1kg pouch of vegetable ghee increased to Rs480.22 during the week, up from Rs474.23 last week, and Rs303.12 last year. On August 16, 2018, vegetable ghee was being sold for Rs150.32/1kg pouch.

This week, Finance Minister Miftah Ismail had said that while there was no chance of an immediate hike in the prices of petrol, an increase could not be ruled out after May 1.

Prices of electricity, petrol and diesel were slashed by Rs5/unit and Rs10/litre, respectively by former prime minister Imran Khan following the announcement of a relief package. If the decision is reversed, the government as per Ismail, plans to “review subsidies given to the rich segment in order to ease inflationary pressure on the poor”.