Overall inflation on point-to-point basis edged up to 5.32 percent in February from January’s 5.2 percent mainly thanks to spike non-food item’s prices along with modest rise in food prices.
Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) unveiled the latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) data at a press conference at its office on Wednesday.
“Commodity prices have increased on the market, which has pushed up inflation. In addition, cost of construction raw materials also rose in Februay,” said Yamin Chowdhury, Secretary of Statistics and Informatics Division (SID).
He, however, could not pinpoint the actual cuase of rise in inflation, saying: “We actually don’t deal with the cause of inflation; we only deal with the data.”
Meanwhile, food inflation rose to 5.42 percent in February which was 5.23 percent a month earlier.
Non-food inflation, on the other hand, jumped to 5.42 percent last month whreas it was 4.23 percent one month ago.
General inflation in rural area soared to 5.33 percent in February which was 5 percent a month ago with rural food inflation rising from 5.46 percent to 5.72 percent.
Urban general inflation, on the other hand, rose from 5.03 percent to 5.30 percent last month with food inflation rising modestly from 4.72 percent to 4.76 percent and non-food inflation going up from 5.41 percent to 5.92 percent.
