ISLAMABAD: Short-term inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Index (SPI), recorded a negative growth of 2.72 per cent year-on-year in the week ending April 17, owing to a decline in the prices of perishable products in the domestic market.

The SPI-based inflation continued downward decline for seven consecutive weeks, mainly due to a decrease in the prices of tomatoes, wheat flour, potatoes, eggs and chicken. It, however, declined by 0.69pc from the previous week, official data showed on Friday.

The overall short-term inflation rate has also slowed due to the higher base of last year. Moreover, the prices remained stable for most of the products, excluding wheat flour and a few perishable products. The price of meat is steadily on the rise in the past few weeks.

In March, the decline in SPI came after a consistent 11-week period of inflation above 40pc, surging from 29pc recorded on Nov 8, 2023. The weekly inflation hit a record 48.35pc year-on-year in early May 2023, but then decelerated as low as 24.4pc in late August 2023 before surging past 40pc during the week ending Nov 16, 2023.

The items whose prices saw a decline week-on-week included tomatoes (22.77pc), chicken (11.05pc), onions (9.82pc), garlic (8.85pc), wheat flour (2.37pc), potatoes (2.18pc), mustard oil (0.95pc), LPG (0.89pc) and vegetable ghee 1kg (0.68pc).

The items whose prices increased the most over the previous week included shirting (3.68pc), lawn printed (1.47pc), long cloth & georgette (1.33pc) each, pulse gram (1.03pc), cooked beef (0.74pc), beef (0.66pc), cooked daal (0.56pc), mutton (0.48pc), pulse moong (0.03pc) and rice IRRI-6/9 & milk fresh (0.02pc) each.

However, on an annual basis, the items whose prices increased the most included ladies sandal (55.62pc), pulse moong (27.21pc), powdered milk (24.71pc), pulse gram (21pc), beef (19.06pc), sugar (17.14pc), vegetable ghee 2.5kg (15.75pc), vegetable ghee 1kg (15.43pc), cooked daal (13.40pc), firewood (10.49pc), shirting (10.28pc) and lawn printed (10.26pc).