By Ali Imran
ISLAMABAD: Prices of various food items witnessed declining trend during the week ending on July 29 as compared to the previous week, according to the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) data released by Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) Friday.
According to the data, the prices of chicken witnessed decrease of Rs 18.35 percent whereas prices of bananas witnessed decline of 1.32 percent on Week-on-Week basis (WoW).
Likewise the prices of pulses including Moong, Mash and Gram decreased by 1.32 per cent, 0.58 per cent and 0.06 percent respectively whereas the prices of potatoes declined by 1.23 per cent during the week.
Meanwhile, on Year-on-Year basis the prices of food items that witnessed decrease included tomatoes, the prices of which declined by 21.83 percent during the week under review compared to the corresponding week of last year. The prices potatoes also declined by 20.45 percent, Moong pulse by 19.73 percent, and chicken by 8.04 percent.
It is pertinent to mention here that during the week under review, prices of 06 (11.8 per cent) items witnessed decrease whereas that of 22 (43.1 percent) remained constant. On the other hand, the items that witnessed increase in prices on WoW basis included tomatoes, the prices of which went up by 6.64 per cent whereas the prices of eggs rose by 3.52 per cent, vegetable ghee (2.5kg) by 2.52, vegetable Ghee 1kg by 1.81 percent, sugar 1.49 per cent and cooking oil by 1.23 per cent.
On YoY basis, the food items that witnessed increase in prices included chilies powder, the prices of which went up by 37.29 per cent, mustard oil by 36.17 per cent, vegetable ghee 1 Kg by 32.84 per cent, vegetable Ghee 2.5Kg by 31.46%, and cooking Oil by 31.00 percent.
The non-food items that witnessed increase included, the electricity charges (for Q1) that went up by 60.81 per cent while prices of LPG went up by 53.50 per cent, gents sandal by 33.37 and gents chappal by 25.13 percent. The overall SPI based weekly inflation for the week ended on July 29 witnessed an increase of 0.03 percent as compared to the previous week.
Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) is computed on weekly basis to assess the price movements of essential commodities at shorter interval of time so as to review the price situation in the country. SPI comprises of 51 essential items and the prices are being collected from 50 markets in 17 cities of the country. During the week under review, prices of 23 (45.1 percent) items witnessed increase, according to PBS data.
