Recent decline in both food and non-food prices contributes to the fall of general point to point inflation 0.11 percentage point to 5.52 percent in June 2019 from 5.63 percent in May 2019, a review report suggests. Year-on-year, the inflation rate in June of FY19 fell slightly by 0.02 percentage point to 5.52 percent from 5.54 per cent.
The review report, released by Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industries (MCCI) last week also suggest that the food price inflation fell 0.09 percentage point to 5.40 percent in June 2019 from 5.49 percent in the immediate past month of FY19 (May 2019), but, year-on-year, food price inflation decreased 0.58 percentage point from 5.98 percent.
On the other hand, non-food inflation came down by 0.13 percentage point to 5.71 percent in June 2019 from 5.84 percent in the previous month while year-on-year, the non-food inflation increased by 0.84 percentage point from 4.87 percent. The BBS data also shows that prices of food items such as rice, pulses, sugar, edible oil, fish and vegetable dropped during the period under review, while house rents and costs of clothing, household goods, fuel, medical and transportation services, and education increased.
Besides, the average annual inflation in the just-concluded fiscal year (FY19) decreased by 0.30 percentage point to 5.48 percent from 5.78 percent in the previous fiscal year. The rate of annual average inflation also remained lower than the government’s target of 5.6 per cent in FY19.
Analysts opine that the one of the key monetary policy objectives of Bangladesh Bank (BB) viz, bringing down annual average inflation to 5.60 per cent by end June 2019, from 5.78 per cent of end June 2018, stood over fulfilled.
