11 April 2004	Sunday	20 Safar 1425

ISLAMABAD, April 10: The Sensitive Price Indicator decreased by 0.22 per cent during the week ending April 8, as compared to the previous week, according to a weekly price review released by the Federal Bureau of Statistics here on Saturday.

The decline was attributable mainly to the 4.47 per cent and 2.98 per cent decline in the rates of wheat and wheat flour, respectively, from the level of previous week.

The average prices of wheat, derived from the situation prevailing in 17 cities of Pakistan, has been mentioned as Rs10.48 per kg for wheat and Rs12.04 per kg for wheat flour.

This is, however, still higher by 15.67pc and 14.78pc as compared to the corresponding period of the previous year and exorbitant because, as per the support price of Rs300 per 40 kg prevailing last year, the wheat was purchased from the farmers at the rate of Rs7.50 per kg.

The prices of seven other items, as compared to previous week, decreased during the period under review as follows:

Sandal ladies (Bata) (-37.59pc), LPG (11 kg cylinder) (-2.37pc), garlic (-2.35pc), vegetable ghee (loose) (-0.40pc), chicken farm (-0.31pc), mustard oil (-0.09pc) and masoor pulse washed (-0.8pc).

But the period under review also saw a substantial spurt in prices of 19 out of 53 essential items comprising the SPI basket as follows:

Egg (13.18pc), onions (7.73pc), tomatoes (7.33pc), potatoes (4.70pc), gram pulse washed (4.68pc), mutton (1.77pc), moong pulse washed (1.04pc), rice Irri-6 (0.72pc), voile printed (0.62pc), lawn (0.56pc), beef (0.54pc), shirting (0.50pc), gur (0.32pc), mash pulse washed (0.32pc), sugar (0.22pc), milk fresh (0.15pc), bananas (0.14pc), rice basmati broken (0.05pc) and coarse latha (0.03pc).

An analysis based on the impact of movement of prices on groups of commodities, however, shows that during the week under review, the index for SPI moved up by 0.05pc, while that of non- food group, it went down by 0.86pc.

This was because of 0.17pc increase in index for the food group. This is attributable to the rise in prices of particularly those items which have gone beyond reach of the lower and middle classes and are now affordable exclusively by the income group with incomes above Rs12,000 per month.

Over all, the SPI fell by 0.15pc for this group, while it declined by 0.39pc for the lowest income group with incomes up to Rs3,000, by 0.38pc for the group in the income bracket Rs3,001-5,000 and by 0.32pc for the households in income bracket Rs5,001-12,000.

CEMENT: The FBS statement reports a further increase of 0.21pc in the average price of cement from Rs234.79 per 50 kg bag to Rs235.29 during the period under review.

A survey of eight cities indicates rapid rise in price of this essential ingredient of construction industry. It reached the level of Rs250 per bag in Quetta. In Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Lahore, it had risen to Rs237.50 each, in Multan Rs235, in Karachi Rs233.50, in Peshawar Rs231.33 and in Hyderabad Rs220.