ISLAMABAD: Shortterm inflation, measured by the Sensitive Price Index (SPI), rose 0.52 per cent year-on-year in the week ending Jan 23, the lowest reading since the data available, owing to a downtrend in the prices of perishable food items.

The SPI-based inflation continued downward for the fourth week, mainly due to a decline in the prices of tomatoes, potatoes and onions. The decline was also seen in the prices of a few pulses.

However, it declined by 0.77pc week-on-week, showed official data on Friday.

The items whose prices saw a decline week-onweek included tomatoes (32.99pc), eggs (10.23pc), onions (9.79pc), potatoes (7.37pc), LPG (2.70pc), pulse gram (1.61pc), chicken (1pc), pulse mash (0.76pc) and gur (0.50pc).

The items whose prices increased the most over the previous week included sugar (2.93pc), bananas (2.70pc), garlic (0.60pc), rice basmati broken (0.47pc), vegetable ghee 1 kg (0.33pc), pulse moong (0.25pc), cooked daal (0.21pc), rice IRRI6/9 (0.15pc) and firewood (0.13pc).-Staff Reporter