ISLAMABAD: Short-term inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Index (SPI), increased 4.18 per cent year-on-year in the week ending Jan 22, owing to an increase in the retail price of wheat flour and pulses in the domestic market.

The SPI-based inflation has been on an upward trend for the past 25 consecutive weeks. The increase is mainly driven by a surge in prices of perishable products, such as tomatoes and eggs. It, however, declined by 0.48pc from the previous week due to lower prices for potatoes and onions, official data showed on Friday.

The extraordinary spike in the retail prices of sugar and meat also contributed to reversing the trend during the past weeks under review.

The price of meat has been steadily rising over the past few weeks.

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 increased the most over the previous week included tomatoes (9.83pc), bananas (3.66pc), wheat flour (2.27pc), eggs (1.02pc), firewood (0.56pc), pulse mash (0.53pc), pulse moong (0.43pc), shirting (0.27pc), pulse gram (0.16pc) and sugar (0.14pc).

The items whose prices saw a decline week-on-week included chicken (16.68pc), potatoes (8.52pc), onions (7.27pc), LPG (3.54pc), salt powder (1.52pc), gur (1pc), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (0.87pc), cooking oil 5 litre (0.53pc), pulse masoor (0.27pc) and cigarettes (0.11pc).

However, on an annual basis, the items whose prices increased the most included wheat flour (38.60pc), eggs (35.99pc), gas charges for Q1 (29.85pc), beef (12.75pc), chilies powder (12.56pc), firewood (10.83pc), tomatoes (10.02pc), bananas (9.94pc), powdered milk (9.79pc), gur (9.42pc), lawn printed (8.29pc) and shirting (8.22pc).

In contrast, the prices of potatoes dropped 47.26pc, followed by garlic (36.28pc), onions (35.55pc), pulse gram (29.79pc), tea Lipton (17.79pc), chicken (16.79pc), pulse mash (12.57pc), pulse masoor (9.75pc), diesel (1.27pc) and petrol (0.95pc).

Published in Dawn, January 24th, 2026