Sept inflation hits 9.1%

Bangladesh’s inflation rate reached 9.5 per cent in August, the highest point in eleven years, and it slightly decreased in September to 9.1 per cent.

“The country’s inflation rate increased to 9.5 per cent in August and then decreased slightly to 9.1 per cent in September,” State Minister for Planning Prof Shamsul Alam told The Business Post on Wednesday.

The general point-to-point inflation rate in Bangladesh was 7.48 per cent in July.

Bangladesh witnessed the highest rate of inflation – 11.97 per cent – in September 2011, according to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).

The bureau, however, is yet to disclose the official data on inflation.

The minister said the inflation rate decreased 0.4 percentage points in September compared to July 2022.

On 3 October, Planning Minister MA Mannan at a programme said that overall inflation had come down significantly in September and will further from October. “The inflation dropped in September as four crore people are getting benefits through one crore family cards. We don’t engineer data. There was just a little delay due to procedural reasons,” he added.

The minister pointed out that the government has taken various steps to reduce overall inflation.

In July, food inflation was 8.19 per cent while non-food inflation was 6.39 per cent.

Meanwhile, the overall inflation in June 2022 was 7.56 per cent while the food inflation was 8.37 per cent and non-food inflation was 6.33 per cent.

According to the BBS, the inflation in rural areas rose to a higher rate than that of the urban areas last month.

In July, the rural inflation decreased to 8.02 per cent from 8.09 per cent in June. The food inflation in the rural areas stood at 8.79 per cent in July, down from 8.93 per cent in June.

The non-food inflation increased to 6.58 per cent in July in rural Bangladesh, compared to 6.51 per cent in June.

BBS has calculated the price inflation with the prices of 422 products in both rural and urban areas.