ISLAMABAD: The Sensitive Price Index, which measures short-term inflation, increased to 15.02 percent in the week ending October 17 as a result of rising prices for pulses and perishable goods.
Following a week-long fall, the SPI-based inflation turned around and increased somewhat. It went up 0.28 percent from the prior week, according to official figures released on Friday.
Price increases for perishable foods like tomatoes and pulses are the cause of the short-term inflationary tendency. In recent weeks, there has been a little decrease in the price of gasoline; however, this has been countered by a rise in the cost of vegetables.
SPI fell in March after rising from 29 percent on November 8, 2023, to above 40 percent for 11 weeks.
In early May 2023, weekly inflation reached a record 48.35 percent year over year. However, it subsequently began to decline, reaching as low as 24.4 percent in late August of the same year, until reaching 40 percent in the week ending November 16, 2023.
Tomatoes (26.24%), pulse moong (9.86%), pulse gram (3.15%), wheat flour (2.10), diesel (2.01%), LPG (1.50%), garlic (1.31%), chicken (0.96%), eggs (0.68%), mustard oil (0.65%), and firewood (0.35%) were among the products whose prices increased week over week.
Onions (7.02 percent), bananas (2.83 percent), gur (1.82 percent), potatoes (1.15 percent), pulse mash (0.72 percent), rice Irri-6/9 (0.40 percent), sugar (0.27 percent), and rice basmati broken (0.09 percent) were the products whose prices dropped the greatest over the previous week.
Gas prices for Q1 (570pc), pulse gram (80.85pc), onions (51.32pc), tomatoes (36.81pc), chicken (34.53pc), pulse moong (33.23pc), powdered milk (25.37pc), beef (23.62pc), shirting (17.05pc), cooked daal (14.41pc), georgette (13.22pc), and ladies sandal (12.52pc) were, however, the items whose prices increased the most on an annual basis.
Conversely, wheat flour prices fell 32.20 percent. These were followed by Q1 electricity costs (20.32 percent), chilli powder (20.32 percent), diesel (17.05 percent), gasoline (12.77 percent), cooking oil (5-liter; 9.10 percent), basmati rice broken (8.18 percent), sugar (7.31 percent), eggs (6.24 percent), bread (5.03 percent), vegetable ghee (2.93 percent), and laundry soap (1.61 percent).
The index, which consists of 51 goods gathered from 50 markets spread across 17 locations, is calculated on a weekly basis to evaluate the costs of necessities at more frequent intervals. According to the data, 23 goods’ prices stayed the same, nine dropped, and 19 items’ prices rose from the previous week.
