ISLAMABAD: Short-term inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Index (SPI), rose 2.83 per cent year-on-year in the week ending Dec 25 owing to an increase in the retail price of edible oil and meat, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics data showed on Friday.

The SPI recorded an upward trend for the past 21 consecutive weeks. The increase is mainly driven by a surge in prices of perishable products, as well as chicken, pulses, and electricity prices.

It, however, declined by 0.09pc from the previous week due to a decline in prices of perishable food items including tomatoes, potatoes and onions.

The extraordinary spike in the retail prices of sugar and meat also contributed to fuelling inflation. The price of meat is steadily on the rise for 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 chilies powder (6.26pc), chicken (5.29pc), bananas (2.46pc), electricity charges for Q1 (1.67pc), garlic (1.50pc), eggs (0.58pc), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (0.56pc), pulse moong (0.48pc) and mutton (0.22pc).

The items whose prices saw a decline week-on-week included potatoes (10.37pc), tomatoes (9.64pc), onions (7.43pc), sugar (4.22pc), pulse gram (1.76pc), LPG (0.78pc), pulse masoor (0.74pc), gur (0.49pc) and rice basmati broken (0.17pc).

However, on an annual basis, the items whose prices increased the most included gas charges for Q1 (29.85pc), wheat flour (22.56pc), sugar (16.32pc), beef (13.01pc), gur (12.46pc), bananas (11.24pc), firewood (11.02pc), chillies powder (10.31pc), eggs (9.71pc), powdered milk (9.51pc), lawn printed (8.29pc) and shirting (8.07pc).

In contrast, the prices of tomatoes dropped 74.92pc, followed by potatoes (49.79pc), garlic (38.17pc), pulse gram (29.66pc), onions (29.23pc), tea Lipton (17.79pc), pulse mash (13.14pc), electricity charges for Q1 (6.87pc), pulse masoor (6.62pc) and LPG (1.11pc).

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, 11 decreased and those of 27 items remained stable compared to the previous week.

Published in Dawn, December 27th, 2025