Food inflation hit more than 6% in January, fueled by political unrest that caused supply chain disruption across the country, officials said yesterday.
It increased for the first time in nine months since March last year when food inflation continued to fall. Food inflation stood at 6.07% in the last month from 5.86% in December, according Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) figures.
“Rise in food inflation was due to supply chain disruption caused by the political turmoil,” said planning minister AHM Mustafa Kamal while releasing inflation data at the NEC conference room yesterday.
But overall inflation declined due continued fall in commodity prices in the international market, he said.
Overall inflation dropped 6.04% in January from 6.11% a month earlier.
During the period, non-food inflation was down 6.01%, breaking the fifth consecutive month rise. In December, it was 6.48%.
Economists fear the current political turmoil, if continued, would increase inflation further.
Policy Research Institute executive director Ahsan H Mansur said food inflation was supposed to fall due to declining commodity prices in the global market but unfortunately started going up due to political chaos.
Food inflation might go up further even in this full season of Aman paddy, if unstable situation in the political arena persists, he said.
“Supply disruption created uneven price hike of rice in rural and urban areas, pushing up inflation. If intensity of political violence grows, it might have an adverse impact on inflation within a year.”
In the last one month, coarse rice rose 1.5% to Tk37 a kilogram and the price of fine varieties increased more than 1% to Tk57 per kilogram, according to the state-run Trading Corporation of Bangladesh.
BBS data also showed that in urban areas inflation rate in January was 6.48%, which was 6.5% in December and in rural areas, it declined to 5.81% from 5.89% during the period.