December 29, 2002	Sunday	Shawwal 24, 1423

ISLAMABAD, Dec 28: Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) registered a slight decline of 0.08 per cent during the week ending December 26 from previous week, according to weekly statement of Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) issued here on Saturday.

Disaggregation of the price data on the basis of income categories shows that the SPI decreased by 0.15 per cent for the households with incomes below Rs3,000. The benefit of the declining trend cascaded down by 0.13 per cent for households in income bracket Rs3,001-5,000, by 0.10 per cent for households in income bracket Rs5,001-12,000 and by 0.04 per cent for those earning incomes above Rs12,000.

In a trend witnessing consistent drop in the price index based on movements of prices of 51 essential items, the index at the end of the week under review was recorded by FBS as 106.55, as compared to 106.64 for the previous week.

The downward movement of the price index notwithstanding, the comparative figures show that the SPI peaked at 108.09 on October 31, 2002. Having stretched the purchasing capacity of the low- and middle-income households beyond the point of sustainability, it started sliding down.

Moreover, the price trends are computed by the FBS on the basis of certain presumptions. These see certain classes of people consuming certain kinds of goods constantly on the basis of weights in the index are assigned. One of these is the egg. Traditionally, its consumption dropped in summer and increased in winter.

The egg price over the past one month has broken all previous records. Its price has gone up to Rs40 per dozen. Working on the assumption that the middle income people would have stopped eating eggs, the FBS presumably computed the change in SPI, supposing that the egg was an item which did not burden their purchasing capacity. Hence the relative drop in SPI.

The concomitant crude approach to the problem of monitoring prices loses its objective which, it is assumed, is to watch the changes in quality of life for the people in different income brackets.

According to FBS, the prices of 9 items, based on prices collected in 17 towns of Pakistan, increased during the period under review compared to previous week. These were:

Chicken farm (3.05%), egg farm (2.67%), rice basmati broken (0.66%), mutton (0.52%), wheat (0.45%), vegetable ghee loose (0.39%), mustard oil (0.36%), wheat flour average quality (0.29%) and beef (0.10%).

However, the FBS data statements has reported decrease in prices of 13 others as follows: Tomatoes (14.39%), gram pulse washed (2.10%), masoor pulse washed (1.98%), potatoes (1.41%), moong pulse washed (1.35%), onions (1.24%), gur (1.09%), sugar (0.99%), mash pulse washed (0.85%), red chilies powdered and garlic (0.46% each), milk fresh (0.33%) and bananas (0.20%).

As regards other items, the price of cement further declined by 1.21 per cent during the week under report compared to previous week. It, however, remained high in Quetta (Rs230 per bag), while the lowest price (Rs190). The lowest cement price — Rs190 — ruled in Lahore, Multan and Hyderabad.

The period under report also saw 0.12 and 0.18 per cent increase, respectively, in prices of urea kisan and C. Ammonium Nitrate, while those of Dia Ammonium Phosphate declined by 0.61 per cent, as compared to previous week.