ISLAMABAD: Short-term inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Index (SPI), rose 1.35 per cent year-on-year in the week ending May 22 owing to a rise in the prices of sugar and meat in the retail market.

After witnessing declines for 10 straight weeks, the SPI reversed the trend with an extraordinary spike in the retail prices of sugar, meat and chicken during the week under review on an annual basis.

It, however, declined by 0.29pc from the previous week, official data showed on Friday. The week-on-week decline was recorded after three consecutive rises, mainly due to a drop in the prices of perishable products.

The retail price of sugar in the market reached Rs190 to Rs200 per kg.

The overall short-term inflation slowed due to the higher base of last year. Moreover, the prices remained stable for most of the products, excluding wheat flour and a few perishable products. The price of meat is steadily on the rise in the past few weeks.

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 August 2023 before surging past 40pc during the week ending Nov 16, 2023.

The items whose prices increased the most over the previous week included tomatoes (12.01pc), eggs (8.16pc), gur (1.50pc), bananas (1pc), pulse moong (0.79pc), wheat flour (0.63pc), pulse gram (0.39pc), powdered milk (0.36pc), rice basmati broken (0.34pc), pulse mash (0.30pc), mutton (0.26pc), energy saver (0.21pc) and beef (0.12pc).

The items whose prices saw a decline week-on-week included chicken (7.26pc), onions (5.43pc), garlic (2.71pc), LPG (2.44pc), potatoes (0.95pc), mustard oil (0.80pc), diesel (0.78pc), pulse masoor (0.46pc), cooking oil (0.14pc), rice IRRI-6/9 (0.09pc), firewood (0.06pc), and vegetable ghee 2.5 kg & sugar (0.05pc) each.

However, on an annual basis, the items whose prices increased the most included ladies sandal (55.62pc), chicken (45.12pc), pulse moong (30.79pc), powdered milk (24.01pc), bananas (22.43pc), sugar (22.12pc), eggs (21.52pc), pulse gram (20.70pc), beef (17.56pc), vegetable ghee 2.5kg (13.86pc), LPG (13.05pc), and vegetable ghee 1kg (12.76pc).

In contrast, the prices of onions dropped 54.53pc, followed by potatoes (30.46pc), garlic (29.43pc), electricity charges for Q1 (29.40pc), tea Lipton (17.93pc), wheat flour (16.63pc), pulse mash (16.03pc), tomatoes (14.03pc), chilies powder (12.30pc), rice IRRI-6/9 (8.50pc), pulse masoor (7.64pc) and petrol (7.43pc).

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 13 items increased, 14 decrea-sed, and those of 24 items remained stable compared to the previous week.

Published in Dawn, May 24th, 2025