Bangladesh inflation down to lowest in four years at 5%

Inflation has come down to five percent, the lowest in the past four years, according to the planning minister.

The government through ‘various measures’ has been able to contain inflation and it would go below target at the end of the financial year, said AHM Mostafa Kamal at a press conference on Tuesday.

He was announcing the latest data by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics at the NEC conference centre in Sher-e-Bangla Nagar in Dhaka.

 

The inflation rate at the end of December last year was at 5.03 percent on a point-to-point basis.

It means that compared to December 2016, one had to fish out an extra Tk 5.30 per every Tk 100 spent on goods and services in the same period in 2015.

Mustafa Kamal said that this was the lowest inflation rate in the last 53 months.

Data from the Bureau of Statistics show that inflation was at 5.38 percent on a point-to-point scale.

The government has earmarked bringing down inflation levels to 5.3 percent during the 2016-17 current fiscal.

The point-to-point index refers to a percentage comparison between consumer prices in a given time period between two years.

Similarly, a point-to-point analysis of 12 months yields the annual data for the same.

The Bureau of Statistics prepares the BBS price index by compiling the price data of non food items and services.

Separate accounting is done for determining overall rural and urban inflation rates.

Food inflation rate for December 2016 stood at 4.49 percent against 5.33 percent in November 2016.

The overall rural inflation rate declined from 4.75 percent in November to 4.46 percent in December while food inflation declined from 4.83 percent to 4.75 percent during the same period.

The non-food inflation rate plummeted from 4.60 percent to 3.88 percent.

The overall urban inflation rate also plunged from 6.56 percent to 6.07 percent.

The urban food inflation rate too dipped from 6.75 percent to 6.74 percent between November and December 2016.

The non-food inflation in urban areas also registered a slump from 6.35 percent to 5.355.

The planning minister attributed the decline in inflation to a generally conducive economic atmosphere across last year.

"There was no political instability. Prices of things were less," he said.