ISLAMABAD: The short-term inflation saw a 25.34 per cent increase on a year-on-year basis for the week ending on Aug 25 due to a surge in the prices of kitchen items, showed the official data released on Friday.

It, however, decelerated from the preceding week’s 27.57pc.

On a week-on-week basis, the weekly inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Index (SPI), rose 0.05pc, showing a rising trend for the past five consecutive weeks.

Of the 51 items in the SPI basket, prices of 22 goods soared, 12 dropped and 17 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 (129.38pc), gas charges for Q1 (108.38pc), cigarettes (102.31pc), tea Lipton (93.94pc), rice basmati broken (89.56pc), chillies powder (86.05pc), sugar (81.21pc), rice Irri-6/9 (80.54pc), gur (63.59pc), gents sponge chappal (58.05pc), salt powdered (49.09pc), chicken (48.58pc) and bread (46.37pc).

The biggest rise week-on-week was in the price of onions (23.56pc), pulse masoor (3.66pc), sugar (3.43pc), garlic (2.17pc), eggs (2.13pc), cooked daal (2.04pc), pulse mash (1.52pc), energy saver (1.89pc) and long cloth (1.51pc).

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 (22.16pc), chicken (5.44pc), rice Irri-6/9 (1.70pc), potatoes (1.43pc), bananas (1.22pc), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (0.97pc), mustard oil (0.87pc), cooking oil 5-litre (0.67pc), pulse gram (0.49pc), LPG (0.43pc) and wheat flour (0.25pc).

Published in Dawn, August 26th, 2023