ISLAMABAD: Short-term inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Index (SPI), increased 5.03 per cent year-on-year in the week ending Sept 11, owing to a continuous increase in the retail price of perishable products in the domestic market.

The SPI-based inflation recorded an upward trend for the past seven consecutive weeks. A surge in prices of perishable vegetables, including tomatoes, onions, potatoes, rice, chicken, LPG and sugar mainly drives the increase.

It, however, declined by 0.02pc from the previous week, official data showed on Friday.

The prices of tomatoes, onions, and potatoes have seen an unprecedented increase in the past few days, mainly due to floods causing damage to standing crops. The tomato price reached Rs280 per kg in Islamabad. The extraordinary spike in the retail prices of sugar, vegetables and meat also contributed to reversing the trend during the past weeks under review.

The retail price of sugar in the market ranged from Rs195 to Rs200 per kg.

The overall short-term inflation rate has also 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 has been steadily on the rise in the past few weeks.

In March, the decline in SPI came after a consistent 11-week period of inflation above 40pc, surging 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 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 onions (12.17pc), tomatoes (10.47pc), potatoes (3.57pc), LPG (3.10pc), rice IRRI-6/9 (1.63pc), eggs (1.52pc), sugar (1.46pc), pulse moong (1.33pc), pulse mash (1.28pc), firewood (0.24pc), lawn printed (0.19pc) and shirting (0.18pc).

The items whose prices saw a decline week-on-week included wheat flour (9.80pc), chicken (3.20pc), bananas (3.10pc) and gur (0.30pc).

However, on an annual basis, the items whose prices increased the most included tomatoes (90.07pc), ladies sandal (55.62pc), gas charges for Q1 (29.85pc), sugar (29.33pc), wheat flour (18.65pc), pulse moong (15.17pc), gur (13.08pc), beef (11.92pc), firewood (11.73pc), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (11.26pc), vegetable ghee 1 kg (10.82pc) and lawn printed (7.92pc).

In contrast, the prices of onions dropped 40.28pc, followed by garlic (26.69pc), electricity charges for Q1 (21.37pc), pulse mash (20.89pc), pulse gram (20.43pc), tea Lipton (17.93pc), potatoes (15.70pc), pulse masoor (4.97pc) and rice IRRI-6/9 (3.05pc).

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 22 items increased, 04 decreased and those of 25 items remained stable compared to the previous week.

Published in Dawn, September 13th, 2025