Price pulse ticks up slightly WoW

SPI rises 0.24% WoW; poultry drives inflation up, vegetables ease with 0.80% YoY drop

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KARACHI:

The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), an indicator of short-term inflation, recorded a slight increase of 0.24% reflecting mixed trends in essential commodity prices for the week ending May 8, 2025.

Notable hikes were seen in the prices of chicken, eggs, and sugar, while sharp declines were observed in tomatoes, garlic, and potatoes.

Out of 51 monitored items, prices of 9 increased, 17 fell, and 25 remained unchanged. On a year-on-year basis, the SPI shows a 0.80% decline, driven largely by significant drops in food and energy items, despite notable increases in selected consumer goods and protein sources.

The SPI is compiled on a weekly basis to monitor short-term price movements of essential commodities across the country. It serves as a key tool for assessing inflationary trends and reviewing the overall price situation. The SPI covers a basket of 51 essential items, with data collected from 50 markets in 17 major cities nationwide.

For the week ending May 8, 2025, the SPI registered an increase of 0.24%. This uptick was primarily driven by significant price hikes in key food items, including chicken (10.20%), eggs (7.36%), sugar (1.93%), beef (1.50%), pulse mash (0.31%), cooked beef (0.20%), mutton (0.15%), and gur (0.11%). Conversely, notable declines were observed in the prices of tomatoes (8.81%), garlic (5.05%), potatoes (3.33%), onions (2.08%), LPG (1.66%), bananas (0.93%), petrol (0.83%), diesel (0.78%), wheat flour (0.76%), vegetable ghee 1 kg (0.46%), and mustard oil (0.33%).

During the week under review, prices of 9 items (17.65%) increased, 17 items (33.33%) decreased, and 25 items (49.02%) remained stable. On a year-on-year basis, the SPI showed a decline of 0.80%, with substantial reductions in the prices of onions (62.53%), tomatoes (44.54%), garlic (36.16%), electricity charges for Q1 (29.40%), potatoes (27.42%), wheat flour (24.17%), Lipton tea (16.98%), pulse mash (16.49%), chilies powder (13.45%), petrol (12.36%), and diesel (8.91%).

However, several items recorded notable year-on-year increases, such as ladies' sandals (55.62%), pulse moong (28.47%), chicken (27.35%), powdered milk (22.27%), pulse gram (20.81%), bananas (19.86%), sugar (19.36%), beef (19.23%), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (14.24%), firewood (10.60%), lawn printed fabric (10.33%), and georgette (9.90%).