SPI Inflation: Prices Spike and Drop in Surprising Week

Sensitive Price Index (SPI) based inflation for the week ending on April 4, 2024, rose by 0.96 percent compared to the previous week.

According to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), Year-on-year data reveals a significant increase of 29.45 percent, primarily driven by surges in the prices of gas charges for Q1 (570 percent), onions (107.59 percent), chili powder (86.05 percent), garlic (53.51 percent), tomatoes (35.77 percent), gur (34.00 percent), salt powder (32.78 percent), pulse mash (26.98 percent), and prepared tea (23.34 percent).

However, there were decreases observed in the prices of bananas (26.68 percent), 5-liter cooking oil (20.53 percent), mustard oil (14.22 percent), wheat flour (5.86 percent), diesel (3.61 percent), and cigarettes (0.06 percent).

During the week in review, out of 51 items, prices of 16 (31.37 percent) items increased, 13 (25.49 percent) items decreased, and 22 (43.14 percent) items remained stable.

Week-on-week, the trend showed an increase in the prices of tomatoes (11.93 percent), super petrol (3.45 percent), chicken (2.99 percent), onions (1.30 percent), plain bread (1.03 percent), beef with bone (0.75 percent), garlic (0.70 percent), mutton (0.41 percent), and broken basmati rice (0.14 percent).

Conversely, prices declined for bananas (3.57 percent), 20 kg wheat flour bags (2.68 percent), eggs (1.89 percent), LPG (1.89 percent), hi-speed diesel (1.18 percent), gur (0.63 percent), sugar (0.41 percent), mustard oil (0.26 percent), masoor pulse (0.25 percent), potatoes (0.23 percent), gram pulse (0.16 percent), moong pulse (0.04 percent), and 5-liter cooking oil (0.01 percent).