SPI jumps 3.68pc WoW, 37.68pc YoY

KARACHI: Spike in electricity and LPG rates pushed weekly inflation up 3.68 percent with annualised numbers surging a whopping 37.67 percent during the seven-day period ended July 28.

Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Friday attributed the week-on-week surge in sensitive price indicator (SPI) to increase in prices of electricity for Q1 (26.11 percent), tomatoes (17.53 percent), LPG (7.02 percent), pulse masoor (4.18 percent), pulse mash (2.87 percent), pulse gram (2.46 percent), pulse moong (2.02 percent), vegetable ghee 2.5kg (1.80 percent), garlic (1.69 percent) and broken basmati (1.21 percent).

The joint impact of these commodities was 4.17 percent in overall SPI for the combined group.

Fahad Rauf, head of research at Ismail Iqbal Securities in his note said inflationary pressures would likely continue in the near-term due to scheduled and pending adjustments in energy tariffs.

“We estimate July 2022 CPI (consumer price index) to come in at 25.2 percent, the reading last seen during 2008 crisis,” he added. In 21st century, 25.3 percent was recorded in August 2008 during the global financial crisis.

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 percent), electricity (8.3627 percent), wheat flour (6.1372 percent), sugar (5.1148 percent), firewood (5.0183 percent), long cloth (4.2221 percent), and vegetable ghee (3.2833 percent).

Of these commodities, prices of milk, electricity, sugar, and vegetable ghee 2.5kg went up, wheat flour and vegetable ghee 1kg declined, whereas prices of firewood long cloth remained stable. Price of electricity charges for Q1 increased to Rs9.08/unit during the week under review, compared to Rs7.20 last week and Rs5.95/unit during the same period last year. In percentage terms, electricity went up 26.11 percent WoW and 52.61 percent YoY. SPI was recorded at 207.47 points against 200.10 points registered during the week ended July 21.

SPI comprises of 51 essential items collected from 50 markets in 17 cities of the country.

During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 30 (58.82 percent) items increased, 7 (13.73 percent) items decreased, and prices of only 14 (27.53 percent) items remained unchanged.

For the groups spending up to Rs17,732; Rs17,733-22,888; Rs22,889-29,517; Rs29,518-44,175; and above Rs44,175; WoW SPI increased 3.27, 4.44, 3.23, 2.55, and 3.54 percent, respectively. The YoY trend depicted an increase of 37.67 percent on account of surge in prices of diesel (101.53 percent), petrol (94.15 percent), chicken (75.65 percent), cooking oil 5 litre (74.81 percent), vegetable ghee 1kg (72.9 percent), mustard oil (72.45 percent), vegetable ghee 2.5kg 70.51 percent), onions (64.18 percent), washing soap (62.46 percent), pulse gram (55.28 percent), gents sponge chappal (52.21 percent), garlic (45.18 percent), and pulse mash (38.35 percent).