Weekly inflation increases by 25.3pc

Karachi: The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) statistics from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) revealed that the short-term inflation rate has continued to rise and increased by 25.34% over the past year for the week ending on August 24.

The short-term inflation increased by 0.05 percent week over week and doesn't appear to be going down, which worries both economists and consumers.

According to data, the Combined Index was at 275.71 compared to 275.57 on August 17, 2023, while the index was recorded at 219.97 a year ago, on Aug 25, 2022.

Moreover, only 12 items experienced a fall in price during the past week, while the prices of 22 important commodities witnessed an unheard-of rise.

During the week under review, the items whose prices increased the most include Onions (23.56%), Pulse Masoor (3.66%), Sugar (3.43%), Garlic (2.17%), Eggs (2.13%), Cooked Daal (2.04%) and Pulse Mash (1.52%), non-food items, Energy saver (1.89%) and Long Cloth (1.51%).

On the other hand, major decrease is observed in the prices of Tomatoes (22.16%), Chicken (5.44%), Rice Irri6/9 (1.70%), Potatoes (1.43%), Bananas (1.22%), Vegetable Ghee 2.5 kg (0.97%), Mustard Oil (0.87%), Cooking Oil 5 litre (0.67%), Pulse Gram (0.49%), LPG (0.43%) and Wheat Flour (0.25%).

An annual examination of SPI change across all income segments revealed that SPI rose in all quantiles, with a range of 22.36% to 28.35%.