Inflation has continued to fall for four months in a row in November, softened by declining food prices.
Month to month inflation eased to 6.21% last month, decelerating from a 6.6% a month earlier, according to the data of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) released yesterday.
The November reading was 25-month low since November, 2012.
Food inflation in November dropped to 6.44% from 7.16% in October. Despite the downward trend in overall inflation, non-food inflation was marginally up 5.84% in November from 5.74% recorded in previous month, according to the BBS.
“Inflation continued to ease in the wake of falling commodity prices both in the international and domestic markets,” Planning Minister Mustafa Kamal told reporters while releasing the inflation data at the planning commission.
He said inflation might drop further in months to come as oil prices in the global market is declining. More than 40% have dropped in global crude oil prices since July, 2010.
Weak consumption of the world’s two economic giants—China and India—also pushed the food prices down, which also helped cool down the inflation, the minister said earlier.
BBS data also showed that in urban area inflation rate in November was 6.51% , which was 6.79% in October and in rural areas, it declined to 6.05% from 6.49% during the period.
The national wage index rate witnessed a 10.32% growth in November, marginally down from 10.7% in October.
The average inflation in last one year from Dec 2013 to Nov 2014 also fell to 7.1% from 7.52% in the corresponding period a year ago, BBS said.
Planning Minister said the government is hopeful of keeping the average inflation within the fiscal target of 6.5% to 7% in the current financial year.
Bangladesh was hard hit by the inflationary pressure in FY2010-11 period when the overall inflation crossed double digit mark in November 2010, BBS officials said.
The minister also released the Annual Development Programme (ADP) implementation rate.
He said the government ministries and agencies spent 20% or Tk15.9 crore of the total ADP outlay of Tk80,315 crore.