Higher interest rates needed to tame inflation, says Anisuzzaman

Those raising voices over port issue do not have the minimum knowledge on the matter, the press secretary says

Chief Advisor’s Special Assistant on Finance Anisuzzaman Chowdhury has said interest rates need to be raised more to bring inflation down to the 5 percent range.

On Monday, he said the policy is necessary because of the large size of the informal sector in Bangladesh.

“Our inflation has come down. There is no doubt the credit goes to the central bank. I have no disagreement with the rationale the governor has presented,” he said.

“But my question is this: since our informal sector is very large, interest rates will have to be raised much further if you want to bring inflation down to five.”

He made these remarks at the launch of the economic report by the General Economics Division held at the NEC conference room in Sher-e-Bangla Nagar, Dhaka.

Bangladesh Bank Governor Ahsan H Mansur presented his argument in favour of not reducing the interest rates until inflation comes down.

Read our Bangla report for more details