Average inflation slightly up last fiscal

FE Report | Published: July 11, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00

The average inflation in the just-concluded fiscal year (FY) 2013-14 stood at 7.35 per cent, up by a 0.57 percentage point from that of the previous fiscal, the official data showed Thursday.
The rise in the average inflation rate was attributed to the increase in prices of food items.
In the FY 2012-13 the average inflation rate in the country was 6.78 per cent.
The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) data, released Thursday, showed that although the point-to-point inflation eased to 6.97 per cent in June from 7.48 per cent in May, the average inflation rate showed an upward trend in the last fiscal.
Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal released the data at a press conference at his Planning Commission .
When asked, BBS Director General Golam Mostafa Kamal said: "Since prices of rice, vegetables and other food items declined, the point-to-point inflation decreased last month (June)."
According to the BBS data, the average inflation rate in the country had been declining since the FY 2013 after a massive hike in the FY 2012 when inflation was recorded at 8.69 per cent (calculated taking the FY 2005-06 as the base year).
In the FY 2013, the inflation rate declined to 6.78 per cent, the BBS data showed.
But, according to the BBS, the average inflation rate rose in the just-concluded FY 2013-14 due to a massive jump in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for food items.
The food inflation was recorded at 8.56 per cent in the last FY, up by 3.35 percentage points from 5.22 per cent in the previous FY.
The BBS figures, however, showed that the non-food inflation declined to 5.55 per cent in the last fiscal from 9.17 per cent in the previous FY 2013.
The rural areas were hit hard by the inflationary pressure during the last FY 2013-14 as the inflation was recorded there at 7.07 per cent, up by a 0.93 percentage point from 6.14 per cent in the previous FY2012-13.
On the other hand, the urban people got a little relief from the inflationary pressure in the last fiscal, as the overall inflation eased to 7.89 per cent in FY2013-14 compared to 8.02 per cent in the previous FY, the BBS data showed.
Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said: "The national economy is going in the right direction and it helped keep inflation within the 7.0-7.5 per cent limit in the just-concluded fiscal."
He said in the budget the government had set the target to keep the inflation rate within the 7.0-7.5 per cent limit which proved possible at the end of the fiscal.
The BBS data also showed that on a point-to-point basis, the rate of inflation in June last dropped to 6.97 per cent due to the lower price trend of food items. Food inflation on the point-to-point basis in June dropped to 8.0 per cent from 9.09 per cent in the previous month of May.
Non-food inflation, however, increased to 5.45 per cent in June compared to 5.16 per cent in May. The BBS DG said local garment prices, house rent, furniture and house expenditures, medical and transport costs, and cost of educational equipment, and different products and services had increased a little bit. These raised non-food inflation in June last fiscal.
According to the BBS data, the point-to-point inflation in both rural and urban areas last month declined to 6.73 per cent and 7.42 per cent respectively from 7.27 per cent and 7.92 per cent in May last.
About the Annual Development Programme (ADP) implementation, Mr AHM Mustafa Kamal said the ministries and other government agencies executed their projects satisfactorily in the last FY 2013-14.
Except three big ministries-health, education and energy-other ministries had implemented 86 per cent of the Tk 600 billion revised ADP in the just-concluded FY.
"If the data, not yet available, on project implementation of a number of ministries, are included, the implementation rate in the last fiscal is expected to cross the previous fiscal year's 96 per cent rate," he told the press.
In the previous FY2013 the government ministries spent 96 per cent of their total ADP allocation.