ISLAMABAD: Short-term inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Index (SPI), slightly went up to 5.13 per cent year-on-year during the week ending November 28 owing to an increase in prices of vegetables and edible oil.

The SPI-based inflation reversed to a modest increase over the past four-week consecutively.

However, it declined by 0.03pc from the previous week, official data showed on Friday.

The slight decline on a week-on-week basis is due to a decline in prices of chicken, pulses and basmati rice.

However, the hike continues in perishable food products such as potatoes and edible oil also have increased after stability in prices.

The government has kept petrol price unchanged in the last review.

In March, the decline in SPI came after a consistent 11-week period of inflation above 40pc, which surged from 29pc recorded on Nov 8, 2023.

The weekly inflation hit a record 48.35pc year-on-year in early May 2023, but then decelerated to 24.4pc in late August 2023 before surging past 40pc during the week ending Nov 16, 2023.

The items whose prices rose week-on-week included potatoes (3.34pc), garlic (1.69pc), bananas (1.13pc), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (0.99pc), vegetable ghee 1 kg (0.93pc), mustard oil (0.91pc), cooking oil 5 litre (0.77pc), eggs (0.65pc), and LPG (0.20pc).

The items whose prices declined the most over the previous week included chicken (3.78pc), tomatoes (2.23pc), pulse gram (1.60pc), pulse masoor (1.38pc), and broken basmati rice (1.15pc).

However, on an annual basis, the items whose prices increased the most included ladies sandal (75.09pc), pulse gram (66.40pc), tomatoes (42.08pc), pulse moong (38.38pc), powdered milk (25.74pc), beef (23.74pc), gas charges for Q1 (15.52pc), and garlic (15.33pc).

In contrast, the prices of wheat flour dropped 35.17pc, followed by chilies powder (20pc), diesel (13.92pc), petrol (11.64pc), tea Lipton (9.91pc), rice basmati broken (9.37pc), pulse masoor (9.14pc), bread (5.99pc), electricity charges for Q1 (5.07pc), cooking oil five-litre (2.13pc) and sugar (1.71pc).

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 12 items increased, nine decreased and those of 30 items remained stable compared to the previous week.

Published in Dawn, November 30th, 2024