Point-to-point inflation in June edged up slightly to 7.8 per cent in June as the caretaker government's mega trillion taka budget failed to ignite the prices, a senior finance ministry official said Sunday.
The point-to-point inflation recorded in April and May was 7.6 per cent and 7.4 per cent respectively.
The average monthly inflation, however, perched up at 9.8 per cent largely due to high food prices, said the official, despite a record yield of 17 million tonnes of rice in the outgoing Boro harvest.
The average inflation recorded in the first nine months of the outgoing fiscal was more than 10 per cent.
The official said unlike previous occasions the new budget measures had not pushed up the inflation in June, as it remained closer to previous two months' figure.
"It's a great relief for us. Usually prices jump during the month of June. But this June was an exception," he said.
The international monetary fund (IMF) had projected that new fiscal measures- that include a 20 per cent pay increase for 1.2 million government officials and a record social spending-- would push up the inflation.
The finance ministry official, however, said point-to-point inflation might go up substantially in July due to a major hike in prices of petroleum products.
The caretaker government July 1, 2008 increased the fuel prices by 33.85 per cent to 37.5 per cent after a gap of more than 14 months.
"This will definitely spur the prices as both the food and transportation cost spiked due to the fuel price increase," said the official.
The country faced one of the turbulent fiscal year in FY2008 when high commodity prices in global market coupled with twin natural disasters of floods and cyclone at home resulted in a record increase in food prices.
Point-to-point inflation soared past double digit figure for in July 2007 and hit 11.59 per cent, the highest in 11 years, in December, before falling gradually at the beginning of the newyear.
It came down to single digit in April.
