ISLAMABAD: Short-term inflation, based on the Sensitive Price Index (SPI), rose to 45.36 per cent for the combined income group on a year-on-year basis for the week ending March 22, data compiled by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) showed on Friday.

However, following a persistent increase for three consecutive weeks, the SPI dropped 0.36pc week-on-week with a slight decline in prices of onion, tomatoes and cooking oil.

The SPI is expected to intensify further as the worse impact of inflation in the wake of Ramazan and other factors is yet to reflect in official data. However, the commodities are expected to be costlier amid the rising food demand in the coming weeks.

Earlier, the year-on-year SPI was recorded 46.65pc for the week ending March 22, and it stayed above 40pc for the first time since Aug 18, 2022 when it stood at 42.31pc.

Out of 51 items in the SPI basket, prices of 23 items soared while those of 11 items decreased, however, rates of 17 items remained unchanged.

During the week under review, the items whose prices increased the most over the same week a year ago were cigarettes (165.88pc), onions (127.07pc), wheat flour (123.22pc), gas charges for Q1 (108.38pc), diesel (102.84pc), tea Lipton (98.08pc), eggs (96.67pc), bananas (94.89pc), rice basmati broken (83.65pc), petrol (81.17pc), rice Irri-6/9 (79.17pc), pulse moong (67.85pc) and potatoes (56.44pc).

On a week-on-week basis, the biggest change was observed in the prices of bananas (7.54pc), eggs (7.22pc), mutton (2.39pc), sugar (2.12pc), wheat flour (1.91pc), tea Lipton (1.79pc), georgette & shirting (1.32pc) each, milk fresh (1.12pc) and beef (1.02pc).

Products whose prices dropped the most over the previous week were onions (15.10pc), chicken (11.96pc), tomatoes (10.26pc), cooking oil 5 litre (1.24pc), vegetable ghee 1 Kg (1.07pc), vegetable ghee 2.5 Kg (0.77pc), pulse gram (0.42pc), pulse moong (0.22pc), mustard oil (0.17pc), LPG (1.35pc) and firewood (0.35pc).

Published in Dawn, April 1st, 2023