Short-Term Inflation Increases as Chicken, Milk Prices Soar

The Sensitive Price Index (SPI)-based inflation for the week ended July 25, 2024, increased by 0.17 percent due to increase in the prices of chicken (4.80 percent), garlic (2.01 percent), pulse gram (1.87 percent), eggs (1.71 percent), beef (0.93 percent), gur (0.89 percent), and milk fresh (0.45 percent), says Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS). During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 19 (37.25 percent) items increased, 8 (15.69 percent) items decreased and 24 (47.06 percent) items remained stable. The year-on-year trend depicts an increase of 20.09 percent mainly due to increase in the prices of gas charges for q1 (570 percent), onions (105.46 percent), pulse gram (40.39 percent), powered milk (39.11 percent), garlic (34.61 percent), pulse moong (29.77 percent), beef (23.52 percent), salt powder (23.28 percent), pulse mash (22.50 percent) and energy saver (17.96 percent). A decrease was observed in the prices of wheat flour (31.75 percent), cooking oil 5 litre (13.44 percent), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (10.42 percent), vegetable ghee 1 kg (9.85 percent), mustard oil (8.33 percent), eggs (5.82 percent), rice basmati broken (4.15 percent) and tea lipton (2.52 percent).