Bangladesh Inflation Accelerates to 13-Year High on Food Prices
Inflation in Bangladesh accelerated to the fastest pace in nearly 13
years on higher food costs, adding pressure on the central bank to
raise interest rates.
Consumer prices rose 11.97 percent in September from a year earlier,
after gaining 11.29 percent the previous month, the Bangladesh Bureau
of Statistics said in a statement today. Food inflation quickened to
13.8 percent in September from 12.7 percent in the previous month.
Prices have jumped the most since December 1998, according to data
compiled by Bloomberg.
Accelerating inflation could stymie the government's plan to boost
economic growth to a record 8 percent in the South Asian nation and
erode incomes in a country where the Asian Development Bank estimates
more than half of the 166 million people live on less than $1.25 a
day.
Bangladesh's central bank has raised interest rates five times in 13
months to tame the inflation rate, which is the highest in Asia after
Vietnam. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina aims to slow consumer-price
increases to 7.5 percent in the financial year ending June 30 from 8.8
percent a year earlier.
The central bank, which has raised interest rates by 275 basis points
since August last year, said on July 27 it plans to persist with a
policy of restraining credit growth in the current fiscal year even as
meeting the government's inflation goal may be challenging.
Bangladesh plans to import 600,000 metric tons of wheat in the next
nine months for various state-run welfare programs, Badrul Hasan,
director for procurement at the Directorate General of Food, said on
Sept 16. Global food prices rose 16 percent in September from a year
earlier, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture
Organization.
To contact the reporter on this story: Arun Devnath in Dhaka,
Bangladesh at adevnath@bloomberg.net; Unni Krishnan in New Delhi at
ukrishnan2@bloomberg.net
------------------------------------
[Disclaimer: ALOCHONA Management is not liable for information contained in this message. The author takes full responsibility.]
To unsubscribe/subscribe, send request to alochona-owner@egroups.comYahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/alochona/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/alochona/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
alochona-digest@yahoogroups.com
alochona-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
alochona-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/