January non-food inflation increases to 8.78pc
The non-food inflation in January, the first month of the year, increased to 8.78 percentage point from 7.05 percentage point in December thanks to the house rent rise at the beginning of the year alongside some extra expenditure for the childrens academic purposes.
However the general point to point inflation rate in January slightly declined to 6.07 percentage point, down from 6.10 percentage point in December due to stable price of food items, said Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal.
Revealing the data, the planning minister after ECNEC meeting said, the non-food inflation rate increased to 8.74 percentage points in January 2016 up from 7.05 per cent in December, 2015.
The food inflation, however, came down to 4.33 per cent in January 2016 which was 5.48 per cent in December, 2015, according to the latest Consumer Price Index data of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).
He said the food inflation rate during the period did not increase as the supply chain was good with the availability of vegetables and other items.
The planning minister also expressed his optimism to further reduce the overall inflation rate in the current fiscal year based on the successful macroeconomic management.
Mustafa Kamal said that he had earlier expected that the inflation rate would come down more in this month.
Besides, the general inflation rate at the urban level slightly increased to 7.53 per cent in January while it was 5.29 per cent at the rural level.
At the rural level, the food inflation also declined to 3.63 per cent, down from 4.76 per cent in the previous month, while the non-food inflation increased to 8.37 per cent in January as against 7.10 per cent in December.
In urban areas, the food inflation also declined to 5.96 per cent in January, down from 7.14 per cent in December. The non-food inflation rate has, however, stood at 9.25 per cent in January which was 6.98 per cent in December last.
The national wage index rate witnessed a 6.03 per cent growth in January with 133.49 point against 6.46 per cent growth with 132.58 point in December.
The average year- to-year rate of inflation from January 2015 to January 2016 stood at 6.20 per cent, which was 6.87 per cent from January 2014 to January 2015.
