C T Online Desk: This is the highest monthly inflation since August 2013. The monthly inflation rate in July 2013 was calculated at 7.85 per cent.
Former World Bank Dhaka Office chief economist Zahid Hussain blamed the supply shortage of rice along with other imported food products for the high food inflation in both rural and urban areas.
The price of boro rice increased by Tk 3 per kilogram in June although the government claimed that there had been a bumper production of boro, he said.
According to the BBS, the food inflation rate throughout the country was 8.37 per cent compared to the non-food inflation rate of 6.33 per cent.
Rural people accounting for almost 65 per cent of the country’s population were facing 8.93 per cent food inflation in June compared with 7.11 per cent faced by the urban people during the same month.
Economists said that the real inflation was much higher than the BBS data showed, fearing a further increase of it after the government imposed tariff measures on many imported items to save the foreign currency reserve that fell to $39 billion in June from $48 billion in August 2021.
They said that the price hike of 19 generic drugs of 53 brands in the current month would also make an adverse impact on people in general who were already affected by the soaring prices of essentials and services as well.
The government policies to contain inflation are ineffective, said Policy Research Institute executive director Ahsan H Mansur.
He noted that people were suffering badly due to the continuous price hike of essential commodities for almost the past six months.
With the latest data, the monthly inflation rate on the basis of base-year 2005-06 continues to maintain an upward trajectory for five months in a row.
The BBS recorded the monthly inflation rate at 6.17 per cent in February 2022, a 16-month high after the rate rose to 6.44 per cent in October 2020.
The monthly inflation rate was recorded at 6.22 per cent in March.
The rate rose to 6.29 per cent in April after the government failed to rein in the price hike of essentials, especially edible oil, which nearly vanished from the market ahead of the Eid-ul-Fitr festival in early May.
In May, the monthly inflation jumped to an eight-year high at 7.42 per cent as the price of almost all essentials continued to rise amid lacklustre monitoring by government agencies.
The upward rally in the rate of monthly inflation has also overtaken the government revised target of inflation at 5.7 per cent for the financial year 2021-2022 by 0.45 percentage points.
BBS recorded the 12-months average inflation at 6.15 per cent in FY22.
