ISLAMABAD: Short-term inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Index (SPI), rose 14.36 per cent year-on-year in the week ending Sept 12 owing to an increase in prices of essential food items.

The SPI-based inflation reversed to a modest increase after a seven-week consecutive deceleration. It increased by 0.01pc from the preceding week, according to Pakistan Bureau of Statistics data released on Friday.

The upward trend in short-term inflation is due to the rising prices of perishable food products, such as tomatoes and chicken, while electricity rates also increased week-on-week.

However, petrol prices fall slightly in the last three weeks, lowering the transportation cost of perishable items. The government has also hinted that fuel prices will drop beginning next week.

The weekly inflation 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 Nov 16, 2023.

The items whose prices saw the increase week-on-week included tomatoes (6.62pc), electricity charges for Q1 (4.13pc), chicken (3.77pc), pulse gram (2.43pc), garlic (2.24pc), beef (1.13pc), mutton (0.71pc), milk fresh (0.11pc), curd (0.10pc), georgette (0.06pc) and shirting (0.04pc).

The items whose prices declined the most over the previous week included bananas (6.04pc), pulse mash (1.33pc), wheat flour (0.97pc), LPG (0.96pc), eggs (0.91pc), potatoes (0.80pc), pulse masoor (0.59pc), pulse moong (0.58pc), onions (0.44pc) and washing soap (0.22pc).

However, on an annual basis, the items whose prices increased the most included gas charges for Q1 (570pc), onions (88.26pc), pulse gram (55.76pc), powdered milk (25.72pc), beef (25.28pc), shirting (21.45pc), chicken (20.10pc), garlic (19.50pc), pulse moong (17.05pc), salt powder (15.94pc), georgette (13.21pc) and energy saver (12.87pc).

In contrast, the prices of wheat flour dropped 38.54pc, followed by chillies powder (20pc), diesel (15.64pc), petrol (15.03pc), sugar (13.98pc), electricity charges for Q1 (13.47pc), cooking oil 5 Litre (10.90pc), rice basmati broken (9.99pc), gur (8.79pc), pulse masoor (8.13pc), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (6.72pc) and LPG (1.46pc).

Published in Dawn, September 14th, 2024