March 4, 2003	Tuesday	Zul Hijjah 30, 1423

ISLAMABAD, March 3: Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) during the week ending Feb 27, 2003 registered a relatively sharp decline of 0.34 per cent from the previous week, according to weekly price data released by the Federal Bureau of Statistics here on Monday.

A major factor was the reduction in prices of chicken, eggs and tomatoes, which are consumed mainly by the affluent classes. Small wonder, the drop in SPI for the households with incomes above Rs12,000 was the highest — 0.37 per cent.

The decline tapered down to 0.33pc per households in income bracket Rs5001-12000, to 0.26pc for those in income bracket Rs3001-5000 and to 0.21pc for households earning up to Rs3000 per month.

Mainly for these reasons, the increase in SPI over the past year slid to 3.06pc to stand at 107.58 at the end of the period under review.

According to FBS data, the prices of 13 essential items declined and those of 9 increased, as compared to previous week. However, there was no respite to the low-income households from the inflation because the prices of 31 out of 51 essential items constituting the SPI basket and gathered in 17 towns remained unchanged.

The 13 items which were available at relatively cheaper rates during previous week included:

Egg (farm) (-19.18pc), tomatoes (-12.59pc), garlic (-2.84pc), potatoes (-2.52pc), chicken farm (-2.23pc), gram pulse washed (-0.80pc), sugar (-0.69pc), rice irri-6 (-0.57pc), LPG (11 kg cylinder) (-0.56pc), gur (-0.46pc), moong pulse washed (-0.40pc), red chilies (powdered) (-0.26pc) and mash pulse washed (-0.16pc).

The prices of following items went up during the period under review as compared to previous week:

Bananas (2.60pc), beef (1.16pc), mutton (0.65pc), kerosene (0.47pc), coarse latha (0.44pc), wheat flour average quality (0.19pc), wheat and mustard oil (0.11pc each) and vegetable ghee loose (0.05pc).

The week also saw a declining trend in prices of various fertilizers. Thus while three categories of fertilizers were available at prices prevailing during the previous week, those of only two increased. These were: S.SP. Phosphate (PD) (0.19pc) and T. SP. Phosphate (GR) (0.23pc).