National-level overall inflation stood at 9.63 per cent in September in a fall by 0.29-percentage points from August as per official statistics released Tuesday.
However, average inflation stayed elevated at 9.29 per cent in September, with a little upturn amid general price rises.
The average rate is set by 12-month moving average from October 2022. The moving average was 9.24 per cent in August.
Moving averages are calculated to identify the trend direction of inflation and many policymakers use it as part of planning for quelling inflation.
However, by the official account, food inflation, which peaked in August, eased to some extent in September.
The national food inflation stood in September at 12.37 per cent, down by 0.17-percentage points from August, according to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) statistics.
Economists say inflation eased to some degrees due to decline both in food and non-food inflation.
They see the changes as too small to be felt assured about a change in the direction of inflation.
Dr Zahid Hussain, an independent economist, told the FE that inflation notched down due to decline in both food and nonfood genres of inflation.
"The decline is too small to be assured about a change in the direction of inflation. It may just be a random fluctuation," says the economist, as prices stay abnormally high for what analysts call market manipulation in many cases.
Dr Hussain, who had served at the Dhaka office of the World Bank as lead economist, explains what changes have been reported on this macroeconomic front. "We did see a change in budget financing in the first quarter when the net borrowing of the government from the Bangladesh Bank was a large negative.
"So there was some sterilization of money supply."
He thinks this stance on tightening will continue because inflation is still way too high and nominal wage growth far behind inflation.
The food inflation in rural areas was put at 12.51 per cent while non-food inflation 7.42 per cent during September, calculated on a point-to-point basis.
The food inflation in urban areas was 12.01 per cent while non-food inflation 8.12 per cent in the past month on a year-on-year basis.
The BBS measures the CPI and then inflation on a new base year of 2021-22.
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