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ISLAMABAD, Jan 31: Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) increased by 0.09 per cent during the week ending Jan 31 as compared to previous week, says the weekly statement issued by the Federal Bureau of Statistics here on Saturday.
Consequently, the SPI moved up to 114.75, up 6.84pc from the corresponding period of previous year.
Lowest income households with incomes up to Rs3,000 per month incurred the highest increase of 0.32pc mainly because of the increase in the prices of wheat, wheat flour, potatoes, etc.
The SPI went up by 0.28pc and 0.17pc, respectively, for the households in the income brackets Rs3001-5000 and Rs5001-12000, respectively.
Notably, the wheat flour became dearer by Re0.13 per kg, with its price being pegged at Rs12.27 per kg. during the period under review.
Significantly, the SPI declined by 0.03pc for the households in the highest income bracket, that is, above Rs12000 per month.
Apparently, they were the only beneficiaries of current scare among the populace about the bird flu epidemic among poultry birds, which led to reduction in the prices of eggs and chicken meat.
The period under review saw increase in the prices of 14 items over the previous week as follows: tomatoes (13.77pc), potatoes (3.91pc), garlic (1.51pc), wheat flour average quality (1.07pc), wheat (0.89pc), milk fresh (0.53pc), beef (0.39pc), curd (0.30pc), mash pulse washed (0.28pc), vegetable ghee tin & cooking oil tin (0.14pc each), kerosene (0.11pc), sugar (0.05pc) and LPG (11 kg cylinder) (0.03pc).
Out of 53 essential items constituting SPI basket, the prices of only 11 items decreased during the period under review as follows: Chicken farm (-11.73pc), egg (farm) (-1.67pc), bananas
(-0.68pc), moong pulse washed
(-0.50pc), onions (-0.34pc), gur
(-0.31pc), gram pulse washed
(-0.26pc), red chilies (-0.17pc), mustard oil (-0.09pc), bread plain medium size (-0.08pc) and vegetable ghee (loose) (-0.03pc).
CEMENT: During the period under review, the average price of cement based on data collected from 8 cities went up by 0.28pc to stand at Rs225.51 per 50 kg bag.
A significant development is that the maximum price of cement moved beyond Rs230 for the first time over the past four years in some cities (Rawalpindi and Islamabad). At these places, it rose to Rs235 per bag. In other cities, its rates ranged from Rs210 per bag (Hyderabad) to Rs227.08 (Quetta).
FERTILIZERS: The prices of 8 fertilizers increased as follows: Urea Sona (0.55pc), Urea Kisan (0.61pc), Dia Ammonium Phosphate (3.26pc), Nitro Phosphate (1.25pc), S.SP. Phosphate (GR) (0.18pc), S.SP. Phosphate (PD) (0.22pc), T.SP. Phosphate (GR) (0.75pc) and C. Ammonium Nitrate (0.95pc).
