Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)- Bangladesh’s inflation as measured by consumers’ price index (CPI) came down to single digit on point-to-point basis in April after 13 months because of decline prices of food and non-food items, officials said.
Official statistics were revealed by Shahjahan Ali Molla, Director General of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), at a press conference in his office in the capital Dhaka on Saturday.
“This is well-coming news because both types of inflations have come down in April,” Bangladesh Bank (BB), the country’s central bank, Governor Atiur Rahman said expressing his satisfaction at declining trend of inflation.
The rate of inflation drooped by 0.17 percentage point to stand at 9.93 percent in April this year down from 10.10 percent in the previous month, according to BBS data.
The central bank chief also said the inflationary pressure on the economy may ease in the coming months following bumper harvest of Boro crops.
The prices of food items came down to 8.12 percent in April from 8.28 percent in March last while non-food prices dropped to 13.77 percent from 13.96 percent.
“Our monetary policy is functioning properly what we expected,” the governor said, adding that the existing monetary policy will continue for quite some time.
Earlier on January 26, the governor had unveiled a ‘restrained’ monetary policy aiming to bring down inflation to a single digit by June through discouraging credit flow to unproductive sectors.
Bangladesh entered into double digit inflation on point-to-point basis in March 2011 mainly due to higher food prices. The rate of inflation rose to 10.49 percent in March 2011 from 9.79 in February last year.
BBN/SSR/AD-05May12-8:01 pm (BST)
