ISLAMABAD: Short-term inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Index (SPI), slowed to 0.98 per cent year-on-year in the week ending Feb 13 owing to a decline in the prices of perishable food items.

However, it disinflated by 0.04pc week-on-week, according to official data, on Friday.

The short-term inflation has slowed due to the higher base of last year. Moreover, the prices remained higher for most of the products, excluding wheat flour.

Edible oil manufacturers have already raised prices in recent weeks. The sugar price surged owing to exports from the country.

The items whose prices saw a decline week-on-week included tomatoes (8.80pc), tea Lipton (4.46pc), onions (3.97pc), pulse gram (1.91pc), potatoes (1.54pc), pulse moong (1.47pc), LPG (0.86pc), wheat flour bag & gur (0.67pc) each, rice IRRI-6/9 (0.48pc), rice basmati broken (0.47pc) and vegetable ghee 1kg (0.42pc).

The items whose prices increased the most over the previous week included bananas (9.37pc), chicken (3.62pc), eggs (2.38pc), garlic (1.47pc), sugar (0.76pc), mutton (0.47pc), powdered salt (0.39pc), beef (0.32pc), pulse mash (0.21pc), cooking oil 5-litre (0.11pc), curd (0.06pc), milk fresh (0.04pc) and powdered milk (0.03pc).

However, on an annual basis, the items whose prices increased the most included ladies sandal (75.09pc), pulse moong (29.15pc), pulse gram (27.87pc), powdered milk (25.84pc), beef (22.75pc), potatoes (21.52pc), bananas (19.18pc), garlic (18.01pc), vegetable ghee 1kg (16.65pc), gas charges for Q1 (15.52pc), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (14.65pc), shirting (14.11pc) and mustard oil (13.20pc).-Staff Reporter