Prices of essential food items, including tomatoes and onions, continued to be a major factor as weekly inflation measured by the Sensitive Price Index (SPI) clocked in at 30.6 per cent year-on-year (YoY) for the week ending on Nov 3, data shared by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) showed on Friday.

Last week, YoY inflation was measured at 30.68pc.

On a week-on-week basis, inflation rose 0.53pc, down significantly from a record high of 4.13pc last week.

The SPI monitors the prices of 51 essential items based on a survey of 50 markets in 17 cities across the country. During the week under review, the prices of 21 items increased, nine decreased and 21 remained unchanged.

Highest YoY rise

• Onions: 213.16pc
• Tomatoes: 79.14pc
• Diesel: 74.51pc
• Pulse Gram: 62.52pc
• Pulse Moong: 55.4pc

Highest WoW rise

• Tomatoes: 15.97pc
• Onions: 9.38pc
• Bananas: 3.77pc
• Potatoes: 2.88pc
• Salt: 2.58pc

Highest WoW fall

• Chicken: 3.77pc
• Pulse Masoor: 2.25pc
• LPG: 1.75pc
• Pulse Gram: 1.08pc
• Vegetable ghee 1kg: 0.17pc

Vegetable prices have soared across the country in the aftermath of the devastating monsoon floods this year. To combat rising prices, the government had exempted sales tax and withholding tax on the import of tomatoes and onions for a period of four months starting in September.

Earlier this week, headline inflation for October clocked in at 26.6pc YoY, over three percentage points higher than last month’s 23.18pc and significantly higher than the 9.2pc in the same month last year.

The inflationary trend was driven by a double-digit increase in all sub-indices except communication. Prices of perishable food items and transport remained high, rising to 70.47pc and 53.43pc YoY, respectively.