ISLAMABAD: According to official data released on Friday, the Sensitive Price Index (SPI), which measures short-term inflation, is still rising as a result of rising fuel prices.
The week ending July 18 saw a year-over-year increase in SPI-based inflation of 24.36%.
It increased by 0.76 percent from week to week. For the last seven months, there has been a steady increase in inflation based on the SPI.
The Finance Act 2024, which instituted various indirect taxes that are presently in effect as of July 1, has been contributing to inflation in a steady manner as the price of chicken, stationery, and pharmaceutical products has increased due to the implementation of sales tax on these commodities.
SPI increases by 24% year over year as sales tax pushes up the cost of food and other necessities.
Food inflation has also increased as a result of higher sales taxes and customs fees on the import of fresh fruits and vegetables from Iran and Afghanistan.
Early in May 2023, the weekly inflation rate reached a record 48.35 percent year over year. It then began to decline, reaching as low as 24.4 percent in late August 2023, before reaching 40 percent during the week that ended on November 16, 2023.
Chicken (10.26 percent), powdered milk (4.56 percent), gasoline (3.77 percent), eggs (2.76 percent), potatoes (2.30 percent), diesel (2.25 percent), and garlic (2.20 percent) were among the goods whose costs increased week over week.
The products with the biggest price drops from the previous week were LPG (0.12pc), onions (0.99pc), bananas (2.25pc), tomatoes (4.45pc), and pulse masoor (0.19pc).
Gas for Q1 (570pc), onions (105.46pc), tomatoes (57.70pc), powdered milk (39.15pc), pulse gram (38.55pc), garlic (36.05pc), chili powder (28.98pc), pulse moong (28.48pc), men’s sandals (25.01pc), shirts (24.97pc), salt (24.61pc), LPG (23.11pc), pulse mash (22.73pc), beef (22.38pc), and electricity charges for Q1 (21.46pc) were the items whose prices increased the most on an annual basis.
Wheat flour prices, on the other hand, decreased by 31.62 percent. This was followed by drops in the costs of a 5-litre cooking oil pack (14.37%), a 2.5 kg vegetable ghee pack (11.25%), a 1 kg vegetable ghee pack (10.63%), mustard oil (8.63%), eggs (2.99%), broken basmati rice (2.93%), and Lipton tea (2.52%).
The SPI was 321.40, down from 258.45 a year ago and 318.96 the week before.
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, 29 items had higher prices, 5 had lower prices, and 17 had constant prices from the previous week.
