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Non-food Items

Inflation hits 15yr high

Staff Correspondent
Fuel import, energy price hike, and taka's devaluation against the US dollar have jacked up the country's non-food inflation to 13.16 percent in January — which is the highest in the last fifteen years.
Prices of food items such as rice,
lentil, fish, meat, fruits, egg, edible oil, and packaged milk also went up in January compared to the month before, according to a top official of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.
At a media conference yesterday, BBS shared the latest data on inflation and said for the first time in the country's history non-food inflation
has been staying in double digit for the last three months. It was 11.38 percent in December.
The sharp rise in non-food inflation arrested the downward trend of the overall inflation, which went up by nearly 1 percentage point to 11.59 percent in January from December's 10.63 percent.
The country's general inflation has also stubbornly been in the double digit for the last eleven months, which was last seen in the early 1980s.
Food inflation also went up to 10.9 percent in January from the previous month's 10.4percent.
"Inflation has gone up due to rise in prices of electricity and fuel oils,” BBS Director General Md Shahjahan Ali Mollah told reporters in his office in the capital yesterday.
"Devaluation of taka against the US dollar has also contributed to the rise," he added.
He said the government has been forced to spend thousands of crores of taka in subsidies for imported petroleum products. Fuel prices were increased to cut spendinginsubsidies.
"However, people's purchasing power has also gone up despite the inflation. Commodities are also available on the market," said Mollah.
He said amid high inflation, the government sold 31,500 tonnes of rice for Tk 24 a kilogramme, and 23,700 tonnes of wheat forTk 17 a kg in January among the poor.
Zahid Hossain, a senior economist of the World Bank, said in addition to price hike of electricity and fuel oils, and devaluation of taka, the rise in government's spending and credit growth in both public and private sectors have also contributed to the hike in inflation.
He said the government has been cutting its spending since December last year. "It has to be continued to reduce inflation."
Zahid said through its latest monetary policy, Bangladesh Bank has expressed its intention to tighten money supply. "This intention has to be materialised," he said.
There are also good signs in the economy, he noted.
"Opening of letters of credit has decreased, which will slow down import growth. Besides, remittance inflow has gone up."
"Asa result, the pressure on exchange rate could go down in the coming months," he toldThe Daily Star.
The country's currency has lost 20 percent of its value against the greenback in the lastoneyeartill January.
On December 29 last year, the government hiked prices of all fuel oils by Tk 5 per litre, the second time in less than two months, and the third time in less than four months.