ISLAMABAD: The short-term inflation rose 27.57 per cent on a year-on-year basis for the week ending on Aug 17 largely due to a surge in petroleum prices, showed the official data released on Friday.

It, however, decelerated from the preceding week’s 30.82pc.

On a week-on-week basis, the weekly inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Index (SPI), rose 0.78pc, showing a rising trend for the past four consecutive weeks.

The petrol price was raised by 6.40pc and diesel by 7.29pc.

Of the 51 items in the SPI basket, prices of 32 goods soared, seven dropped and 12 remained unchanged compared to the previous week.

During the week under review, the items whose prices increased the most over the same week a year ago were: wheat flour (131.29pc), gas charges for Q1 (108.38pc), cigarettes (106.89pc), tea Lipton (95.19pc), rice basmati broken (88.76pc), chillies powder (86.05pc), rice Irri-6/9 (84.16pc), sugar (74.71pc), gur (63pc), chicken (58.56pc), gents sponge chappal (58.05pc), potatoes (56.30pc) and salt powdered (49.09pc).

The biggest rise week-on-week was in the price of chillies powder (7.58pc), rice Irri-6/9 (7.48pc), garlic (5.06pc), sugar (4.02pc), gur (3.23pc), rice basmati broken (3.06pc), chicken (2.83pc) and bananas (2.72pc).

In May, the SPI stayed above 45pc for three weeks after hitting an all-time high at 48.35pc on May 4.

The rupee depreciation, rising petrol prices, sales tax and electricity bills are among the key contributors to this inflationary trend.

According to the latest IMF forecast, the average Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the current fiscal year is projected to be 25.9pc from the previous year’s 29.6pc.

Meanwhile, a decrease was also observed on a week-on-week basis in prices of tomatoes (13.60pc), cooking oil 5 litre (1.65pc), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (0.85pc), vegetable ghee 1 kg (0.43pc), firewood (0.42pc), mustard oil (0.23pc) and wheat flour (0.19pc).

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2023