Finance Minister AMA Muhith on Thursday hoped that the overall inflation will be reduced to 7%in the next fiscal year (2013-14) and to 5.5%in the medium term, reports UNB.
“I hope that overall inflation will be reduced to 7.0%in the next fiscal year and to 5.5%in the medium term,” he said in Parliament, while placing the national budget for fiscal year 2013-14.
Muhith said that according to the projection, stability in energy prices currently prevailing in international markets will continue in 2014 as well. Besides, fertiliser and food prices may slightly fall.
“I expect food inflation will come down to a tolerable level due to satisfactory domestic agricultural production and downward trend of food prices in the international market.”
He also told the House that the untiring efforts have been successful in bringing down inflation to a tolerable level, returning comfort to peoples’ lives.
At the end of April this fiscal year, inflation dropped to below 7.9% on point to point basis, down from 9.9% in the corresponding period of the last fiscal (2011-12).
Mentioning that the last four years was a period of turmoil for both global and regional economy, the Finance Minister said even in such a situation, the government could rein in inflation by taking certain measures.
These included building up satisfactory food stock, distributing food grains among the poor at a fair price, providing continuous policy support to the agriculture sector and removing supply side constraints in different sectors like power and energy.
In addition, tight monetary policy has been undertaken for the first and second half of this fiscal year to keep the non-food inflation under control, he added.
Muhith also informed that inflation would be estimated from the next fiscal taking 2005-06 as base year.