Soaring onion and other vegetables' prices led to a sharp rise in inflation at 18.32 per cent for the week ended December 25. Food inflation jumped up by 3.88 percentage points from 14.44 per cent recorded in the previous reporting week. The rise in food inflation has been mainly on account of 58.58 per cent rise in prices of vegetables in the wholesale market.Among the individual items, onion became dearer by 82.47 per cent on annual basis, while egg, meat and fish became costlier by 20.83 per cent, fruits by 19.99 per cent and milk by 19.59 per cent.The data further reveals that onion prices during the one week period ending December 25, rose by 23.01 per cent in the wholesale market.In the non-food category, the prices of fibres and minerals have climbed by 35.53 per cent and 30.58 per cent. The overall inflation in November had come down to 7.75 per cent from 8.58 per cent a month ago. Meanwhile, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee today said that food inflation remains an area of concern.Talking to reporters after the government's weekly data showed that the food inflation kept climbing for the fifth straight week, Mr. Mukherjee however, added that these are weekly variations and figure for December month is yet to come before a final assessment could be made.