• Kitchen fuels, fruit, and chicken register price increase
• Prices of vegetables, meat, sweeteners and eggs decline

The prices of 19 commodities went up in February 2012 as compared with the preceding month while those of 20 came down and 13 remained unchanged. On average, there was a 2% increase in prices of commodities like kitchen fuels, fruit, chicken, some condiments and pulses while the price of commodities including vegetables, meat, sweeteners, eggs and wheat grain fell by 4%.

FAFEN retail price monitors collected prices of 52 commodities and services from 190 retail outlets in 102 districts on February 10, 2012. Among the observed commodities, Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) registered the highest price increase of 8% while a marginal 1% rise was recorded in prices of firewood and kerosene oil.

There was also an increase in prices of some fruits including dark red apples (7%), bananas (6%) and golden apples (3%) but kinnow was down 8%. Also down were the prices of all the monitored vegetables, tomatoes falling a massive 13% – the highest decrease, followed by onions (11%) and potatoes (5%).

However, the price of a plate of cooked vegetable rose by 1%. On the other hand, the prices of all the observed sweeteners fell – gur (9%), desi shaker (6%) and sugar (3%). The harvesting of sugarcane across Pakistan in February is said to be the reason for this decrease in prices of the crop’s by-products. On the poultry side, the price of live chicken broiler increased 3% and that of chicken broiler meat by 1%.

The price of eggs, however, registered an 8% decline while mutton and beef were down 1%. Resultantly, the price of a plate of cooked beef fell 2%. Of the observed rice varieties, only the price of basmati 386 increased by 1% while basmati broken and irri-6 witnessed no change. Among pulses, the prices going up were those of red beans (2%), white beans (1%) and gram pulse (1%) but moong pulse and chickpeas registered a 3% and 1% decrease.

Changes were also recorded in prices of condiments and spices – ginger up 5% and garlic 3% while turmeric fell 3% and red chili powder 4%. With a slight decrease in price of wheat grain of 1%, the price of plain chapatti (tandoori) also decreased as much. Since FAFEN compared the data collected by its Governance Monitors with the one gathered by the Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) for its Sensitive Price Index (SPI) it reflected differences in prices of several commodities.

Twenty-eight of the SPI’s commodities are included in FAFEN’s Retail Price Monitor. While FBS collects the prices of 53 items in 17 cities, FAFEN gathers those of 52 commodities and services in a wider area spanning 120 districts.

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