Bangladesh inflation rises to 5.76% in first three months of 2018

Inflation in Bangladesh has risen in the first three months of 2018 and Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal has blamed it on the hike in spending for commodities and services other than food.

He hopes it will be possible to keep the rate of inflation within the government’s 5.5 percent target when the fiscal year ends in June.

He presented the inflation data for the third quarter of the current fiscal year at a news conference on Tuesday.

According to the data gathered by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics or BBS, general inflation on a point-to-point basis was 5.76 percent from January to March, up by around 0.5 percentage points from 5.28 percent of the same period last year.

“Though inflation rose 5.76 percent in past three months, we hope we will be able to contain it within the 5.5 percent target in the end of the fiscal year,” the minister said. 

Inflation in January, February and March rose to 5.88 percent, 5.72 percent and 5.68 percent respectively.

Kamal said the prices of egg, vegetables and spices dropped slightly in this period, but spending on clothes, fuel, house rent, furniture, household appliances, health services, transport and education materials rose, impacting the general inflation.

Inflation rose in both rural and urban areas in the three months. It was 5.72 percent in rural areas, which was 5.08 percent in the same period last year.

In urban areas, inflation rose to 5.83 percent from 5.65 percent of last year’s first quarter.