Inflation drops to 8.71% in December

The general point-to-point inflation rate has decreased by 0.14 percentage points to 8.71 per cent in December 2022 compared to November 2022.

The inflation rate was 8.85 per cent in November and 8.91 per cent in October, according to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), Inflation Rate and Wage Rate Index (WRI) in Bangladesh.

The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) on Monday revealed the data.

According to the data, food inflation was 7.91 per cent while non-food inflation was 9.96 per cent in December. Food inflation was 8.14 per cent while non-food inflation was 9.98 per cent in November.

However, the BBS inflation data did not reflect the real scenario in the kitchen markets. The prices of essential commodities are much higher there.

The inflation rate in September 2022 was 9.10 per cent while it was 9.52 per cent in August which was the highest in 11.3 years, the BBS data.

According to the budget for FY23, Bangladesh set the inflation target at 5.6 per cent for this fiscal.

Meanwhile, inflation in rural areas rose at a higher rate than that of urban areas in November.

Earlier, Planning Minister MA Mannan said at the ECNEC meeting that the country’s point-to-point inflation rate will come down in November and it will continue in December or January and it will be stable in February. “The declining trend of inflation might get slowdown in next March,” he also said.

In December, the rural inflation decreased to 8.86 per cent from 8.94 per cent in November.

The food inflation in the rural areas was recorded at 8.11 per cent in December, down from 8.23 per cent in November.

The non-food inflation also decreased to 10.29 per cent in December in rural Bangladesh from that of 10.31 per cent in November. Urban inflation decreased to 8.43 per cent in December from that of 8.70 per cent in November.

The food inflation in urban areas was recorded at 7.45 per cent in December, down from 7.95 per cent in November. However, the non-food inflation in urban areas decreased to 9.51 per cent in December from 9.54 per cent in November.

Besides, the wage rate index jumped to 7.03 per cent in December, 0.05 percentage points higher than the November wage rate index. The growth in wages is 1.68 percentage points lower than the inflation rate, which indicates that the purchasing power of the wage earners reduced in December.

President of the Consumers Association of Bangladesh Golam Rahman told The Business Post that the BBS’s inflation statistics did not reflect in the real scenario of prices of essential commodities in the markets. The real inflation rate is more than the BBS data represents. The price of all kinds of essentials is high in the kitchen markets, he said, adding that the inflation situation has significantly worsened, which has already left a negative impact on low and middle-income people across the country.

The government should increase the monitoring system in both wholesale and retail markets to stable the essential price, he added.