Inflation rises to 5.54% in August

The point-to-point inflation rate jumped by 0.18 percentage point in August to 5.54%, according to a report released by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) on Tuesday.

The inflation was 5.36% in July, 0.28 percentage points lower than in June.

The inflation rate for both food and nonfood items increased last month. And, it increased in urban and rural areas too.

Despite an increase in inflation rate for all types of commodities in all areas in August, the moving average inflation for the last 12 months declined compared with the average of the same period in the previous year.

The BBS' regular release titled "Consumer Price Index (CPI), Inflation Rate and Wage Rate Index (WRI) in Bangladesh" revealed that the average inflation for the last 12 months was 5.53%, while the rate was 5.56% in the previous year.

The point-to-point inflation, calculated by the consumer price index, indicates the degree of increase in the cost of living in a particular point of time in comparison with the same period a year ago.

The August inflation of 5.54% means that a product or service that cost Tk100 in August 2020, is now causing consumers to spend Tk105.54.

The report revealed that the inflation in the food sub-sector rose to 5.16% in August from 5.08% in July.

However, non-food sub-sector inflation increased slightly to 6.13% last month from 5.80% in July.

According to the BBS report, prices of eggs, broiler chickens, and vegetables, such as eggplant, pumpkin, sweet pumpkin, raw papaya, potato, cucumber, carrot, lemon, etc. have come down in August.

However, inflation in rural areas stood at 5.71% in August, up from 5.53% in July.

The inflation rate in urban areas increased to 5.22% from 5.06% in July.