ISLAMABAD: Prices rose significantly in the outgoing week, both on on-year and on-week bases, mainly led by onions, chicken, cooking oil and a massive jump in fuel prices, official data showed on Friday.

As a result, short-term inflation, measured by Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), jumped to 38.42 per cent on a year-on-year basis for the week ended on Feb 16, rising from 34.83pc in the previous week, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) said.

The hike in prices is the highest annual rise since the week ending Sept 15, 2022, when the SPI inflation was 40.6pc.

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The week-on-week inflation also jumped to 2.89pc from 0.17pc a week ago. Of the 51 items tracked, the prices of 34 items increased, five items decreased, whereas those of 12 items remained unchanged.

The 2.89pc weekly reading is the highest since Oct 27, when the week-on-week change in prices was 4.13pc, official data showed.

Prices also soar compared to previous week after massive fuel rate hike

During the week under review, the items whose prices increased the most compared to the previous year were onions (up 433.4pc), chicken (101.9pc), diesel (81.4pc); eggs (81.2pc); Irri-6/9 rice (74.1pc); broken basmati rice (73pc), petrol (69.9pc), moong pulse (68pc), and bananas (67.7pc).

In contrast, the highest year-on-year fall was recorded in the prices of tomatoes (-65.3pc), chilli powder (-7.42pc), and electricity for the income group earning up to Rs17,732 per month (-7.5pc).

On a week-on-week basis, the highest change was noted in the prices of petrol (8.82pc), cooking oil 5 litres (8.65pc), vegetable ghee 1kg (8.02pc), bananas (8.01pc), chicken (7.49pc), and diesel (6.49pc).

The products whose prices dropped the most compared to the previous week were tomatoes (-14.27pc), onions (-13.48pc), eggs (-4.24pc), garlic (-2.1pc), and flour (-0.1pc).

The PBS data showed that the SPI increased by 2.45pc for the lowest-income group (i.e. people earning below Rs17,732 per month) and by 2.94pc for the group with a monthly income of more than Rs44,175.

Pakistan has been at the grips of decades-high inflation in the past few months. In January, annual inflation measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) spiked 27.55pc — the highest increase since May 1975.

Published in Dawn, February 18th, 2023