ISLAMABAD: Short-term inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Index (SPI), increased to 5.08 per cent year-on-year in the week ending on Dec 26 owing to an increase in the prices of edible oil and essential kitchen items.

The SPI-based inflation reversed to a modest increase for a third consecutive week. It increased by 0.80pc from the previous week, official data showed on Friday.

The persistent increase on a week-on-week basis is due to increased prices of vegetable ghee, cooking oil, chicken, tomatoes and sugar. The increase continues in perishable food and energy products like LPG and firewood.

The items whose prices saw an increase week-on-week included chicken (22.47pc), tomatoes (20.75pc), sugar (2.19pc), vegetable ghee 1Kg (1.17pc), firewood (0.95pc), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (0.91pc), cooking oil 5 litres (0.74pc), cooked beef and mustard oil (0.69pc) each, LPG (0.18pc) and washing soap (0.09pc).

The items whose prices decreased the most over the previous week included onions (8.13pc), potatoes (2.38pc), pulse mash (1.28pc), pulse gram (0.78pc), bananas (0.68pc), rice IRRI-6/9 (0.50pc), eggs (0.30pc) and rice basmati broken (0.15pc).

However, on an annual basis, the items whose prices increased the most included tomatoes (138.53pc), ladies sandal (75.09pc), potatoes (61.17pc), pulse gram (51.17pc), pulse moong (31.51pc), powdered milk (25.62pc), beef (24.28pc), garlic (17.27pc), gas charges for Q1 (15.52pc), cooked daal (15.10pc), shirting (14.36pc) and firewood (13.14pc).

In contrast, the prices of wheat flour dropped 36.20pc, followed by onions (31.21pc), chillies powder (20pc), eggs (12.89pc), pulse masoor (11.18pc), rice basmati broken (7.98pc), diesel (7.49pc), electricity charges for Q1 (6.96pc), pulse mash (6.27pc), bread (6.01pc) and petrol (5.64pc).

Published in Dawn, December 28th, 2024