Bangladesh News

The country’s food inflation reached as high as 10.56 percent in January this year on a point-to-point basis, crossing the double-digit mark again after 15 months. In September 2008 it was 12.02 percent.

The inflation was even higher in urban areas in January this year, reaching 12.07 percent.

Non-food inflation at the national level however dropped slightly in January this year standing at 6.53 percent compared to December last year’s 7.04.

The countrywide overall inflation increased by .48 percentage point reaching 8.99 percent in January this year, which was 8.51 percent in December last.

Between October 2008 and June 2009 overall inflation kept falling, dropping to 2.3 percent in June. But from July last year both food and non-food inflation regained their upward trends, increasing every month.

The data came out of the half-yearly report on the implementation of the current annual budget, submitted to the parliament by Finance Minister AMA Muhith on Tuesday.

Under the impacts of price hikes on the international market, and due to increases in remittance flow and foreign currency reserves, the inflation showed an upward trend, he said adding that the government already put several measures in place including unhindered supply of commodities, to contain inflation.

Bangladesh Bank in its quarterly update released last month said, “Given the current trends of internal and external prices, both food and non-food point-to-point inflation looks set to continue over the coming months with some upward bias.”

“Given the supply sources of emerging inflationary pressures, the policy focus needs to be directed at improving both the supply conditions and the supply chain, for more efficient distribution,” it added.

The central bank update also said the open market sales (OMS) operation along with food for work, and vulnerable group feeding (VGF) programmes will be of some help, but the real emphasis should be put on raising boro production to ensure food security.