ISLAMABAD: Short-term inflation remained elevated rising 43.79 per cent year-on-year in the week ending on Jan 25, official data showed on Friday.

The persistent rise in inflation, observed in the first three weeks of January indicates no signs of deceleration in the near term. This spike is primarily fuelled by a surge in gas prices, electricity tariffs, and the cost of essential kitchen items.

The weekly inflation measured by the Sensitive Price Index (SPI) hit a record 48.35pc year-on-year in early May 2023 but then decelerated as low as 24.4pc in late Aug 2023 before surging past 40pc during the week ending on Nov 16, 2023. Since then, the SPI has remained above 41pc consecutively.

The SPI witnessed a 0.14pc week-on-week decline as of Jan 25.

On an annual basis, the items whose prices increased the most included gas charges for Q1 (1108.59pc), tomatoes (133.36pc), cigarettes (93.22pc), chillies powder (81.74pc), wheat flour (62.36pc), sugar (58.52pc), gents sponge chappal (58.05pc), garlic (54.66pc), gents sandal (53.37pc), gur (52.29pc), eggs (46.80pc) and rice IRRI-6/9 (43.48pc).

In contrast, the prices of mustard oil dropped 8.64pc year-on-year, followed by mustard oil (7.51pc), bananas (6.52pc) and vegetable ghee (1.33pc).

The short-term, or weekly, inflation is measured by a basket of goods and services called the SPI, which stood at 318.55 compared to 319 in the preceding week and 221.54 a year ago.

The index, comprising 51 items collected from 50 markets in 17 cities, is computed weekly to assess the prices of essential commodities and services at shorter intervals. Data showed that the prices of 15 items increased, those of 13 items decreased and those of 23 items remained stable compared to the previous week.

The items whose prices saw the highest increase week-on-week included chicken (3.31pc), cooked daal (1.32pc), gur (0.98pc), tea prepared (0.92pc), pulse moong (0.80pc), energy saver (0.54pc), pulse mash & eggs (0.43pc) each, LPG (0.28pc), beef (0.25pc), wheat flour (0.16pc) and firewood (0.03pc).

The items whose prices dropped the most over the previous week included tomatoes (14.14pc), potatoes (5.06pc), onions (1.64pc), tea Lipton (1.19pc), bananas (0.81pc), pulse gram (0.33pc), garlic (0.26pc) and mustard oil (0.17pc).

Published in Dawn, January 27th, 2024