Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN) - Bangladesh’s inflation as measured by consumers’ price index (CPI) moved up slightly in the month of October on point-to-point basis mainly because of increase in prices of food items.
The country’s point-to-point inflation rate rose to 5.57 per cent in October 2016 from 5.53 per cent of the previous month while the rate of annual average inflation came down to 5.66 per cent from 6.21 per cent, according to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) data.
Rises in prices of rice, vegetables, salt, milk and milk products, edible oil and sugar have fuelled the inflation in October, a senior BBS official explained.
On the other hand, the rate of inflation in urban areas fell by 0.34 percentage points to 6.87 per cent in October compared to 7.21 per cent in September.
Planning minister AHM Mustafa Kamal unveiled the CPI data on Thursday in the capital Dhaka after the meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC).
About the higher inflation, the minister said since the prices of some food items like rice, vegetables, oil had increased in the market the point-to-point inflation in the last month boosted slightly.
Yet, the overall inflation in the current fiscal will be within the government target, he noted.
In the national budget, the government set a target to keep the inflation rate within 6.0 per cent limit.
The food inflation on point-to-point basis in the rural Bangladesh increased to 4.89 per cent in the last month from 4.27 per cent in the previous month while the urban areas stood at 7.09 per cent from 7.03 per cent.
On the other hand, the non-food inflation, however, dropped to 4.83 per cent in October last from that of 5.31 per cent in the previous month of September, the BBS data showed.
BBN/SSR/AD