Food prices push weekly inflation to 30.6pc

Short-term inflation measured by the Sensitive Price Index (SPI) reached 30.6 per cent year-on-year in the week ending on January 5, up from last week's 29.3pc, as food prices continue to remain high.

Data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Friday showed inflation rose 1.09pc week-on-week. It had fallen slightly by 0.09pc in the previous week.

The SPI monitors the prices of 51 essential items based on a survey of 50 markets in 17 cities across the country. During the week under review, the prices of 23 items increased and nine decreased while 19 remained unchanged.

Pakistan has been in the grips of high inflation in the past few months. The Consumer Price Index (CPI), which had spiked to a decades-high level of 27.2pc in August and slowed slightly in the following months, rose again to 24.5pc in December.

The finance ministry had forecast inflation would stay high - between 21-23pc during the current fiscal year.

Inflation has been driven in part due to the devastating floods last year that destroyed swathes of agricultural land, leading to shortage of some food items. Consequently, the government temporarily removed duties on the import of onions and tomatoes from Iran and Afghanistan in a bid to reduce prices.

Separately, an uncontrollable upward trend in prices of wheat flour and chicken has left consumers high and dry as rates reached record levels in recent days amid a lack of price checks and a poultry feed crisis. Two more staples ghee and cooking oil - are also going to be short in supply as well as costlier ahead of the holy month of Ramazan if corrective measures are not taken immediately.

Supreme Court Justice Ijazul Ahsan asked investigators to discuss with the foreign ministry the possibility of involving the United Nations in the murder probe of journalist Arshad Sharif.

Justice Ahsan made the suggestion as a fivemember bench of the top court comprising Chief Justice of Pakistan Umar Ata Bandial, Justice

Sayyed Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail and Justice Mohammad Ali Mazhar, resumed suo motu proceedings of the matter today. Senior journalist and anchorperson Arshad Sharif was murdered on the outskirts of Nairobi on October 23, 2022.

The police submitted a 13-page interim report to the court about investigations into journalist Sharif's murder for the judges to peruse in chambers only.

The SC bench had already issued notices to the heads of the FIA and Intelligence Bureau (IB) and Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ), as well as foreign affairs, interior, and information secretaries for today.

At the outset of the hearing, CJP Bandial inquired whether the 41 people the special joint investigation team (JIT) questioned were in Pakistan.

He went on to ask if the JIT also spoke to any of the people abroad through video link.

Additional Attorney General Ameer Rehman said that those who were out of the country would be questioned in Kenya.