ISLAMABAD: Short-term inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Index (SPI), increased 2.41 per cent year-on-year in the week ending January 1 owing to an increase in the retail price of wheat flour and rice, official data showed on Friday.

The SPI-based inflation recorded an upward trend for the past 22 consecutive weeks.

The increase is mainly driven by a surge in prices of perishable products, as well as chicken, tomatoes, and edible oil prices.

It, however, declined by 0.67pc from the previous week due to a decline in prices of perishable food items including potatoes and onions.

The extraordinary spike in the retail prices of sugar and meat contributed to spike in short-term inflation on an annual basis.

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 chicken (2.37pc), wheat flour (1.88pc), tomatoes (1.72pc), bananas (1.13pc), garlic (1.11pc), rice basmati broken (0.96pc), rice IRRI-6/9 (0.75pc), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (0.44pc) and firewood (0.01pc).

The items whose prices saw a decline week-on-week included onions (11.84pc), potatoes (10.21pc), eggs (6.25pc), petrol (3.89pc), diesel (3.20pc), sugar (2.88pc), pulse gram (2.32pc), pulse masoor (1.80pc), LPG (1.31pc), gur (1.12pc) and pulse mash (1.05pc).

However, on an annual basis, the items whose prices increased the most included gas charges for Q1 (29.85pc), wheat flour (24.98pc), beef (12.95pc), sugar (11.90pc), bananas (10.63pc), gur (10.57pc), firewood (10.43pc), chilies powder (10.31pc), powdered milk (9.51pc), lawn printed (8.29pc), shirting (8.07pc) and mutton (7.43pc).

In contrast, the prices of tomatoes dropped 70.52pc, followed by potatoes (52.25pc), onions (40.54pc), garlic (37.35pc), pulse gram (31.06pc), tea lipton (17.79pc), pulse mash (14.01pc), pulse masoor (8.38pc), LPG (2.23pc) and diesel (0.30pc).

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, 13 decreased and those of 26 items remained stable compared to the previous week.

Published in Dawn, January 3rd, 2026