Inflation hit 9.05% in May
Citing media reports, she said the move is expected to increase public expenditure by nearly Tk 7,000 crore
Rising prices hurt the poor, forcing cuts to necessities and increasing poverty in Bangladesh.
The caution comes as consumer prices, despite easing in the last two months, have stayed over 9 percent for the 24th month in a row
Inflation declined to 9.32% from January's 9.94%
Bangladesh inflation soared (5.86 percent to 11.38 percent in 2022-2024), driven by global shocks and food prices.
In its latest report released today, the organisation projected inflation will stabilise between 8.5% and 9.5% by June but fall to 6-7% by December
Ministers and members of parliament of the previous government relentlessly blamed “syndicates” for increasing the prices of chicken, eggs and other foods.
Inflation in Bangladesh eased for the second consecutive month in January, driven by stable food prices due mainly to an abundant supply of winter vegetables to the local market.
The government has kept borrowing from the Bangladesh Bank as commercial banks can’t come up with much-needed funds owing to the liquidity crunch.
Bangladesh is going through a period of economic slowdown and this weakening of the economy will be looming large for the entire period of 2023. The biggest problem for the common people now is inflation. It has increased the living cost and decreased the actual income.
Inflation eased for the fifth consecutive month as it fell to 8.57 per cent in January.
Abdul Wahab, a security guard at an ATM booth of a private bank in the capital, works 16 hours a day.
Bangladesh is expected to get about $6 billion over the next four years from development partners other than the International Monetary Fund to meet the development financing needs, particularly to address climate change challenges.
As the US dollar shortage persists, businesses in Bangladesh are increasingly finding it difficult to open letters of credit (LCs) since banks can’t supply the adequate American greenback needed to finance imports.
It bears remembering that, as recently as the second half of 2021, the Federal Reserve considered that the surge in consumer price inflation would dissipate, with price increases returning to the Fed’s 2 per cent target in 2022. In testimony before Congress, Fed Chair Jerome Powell affixed the now infamous “transitory” moniker to the ongoing price increases, which he ascribed to temporary supply bottlenecks and price declines in the early stages of the pandemic.
Why cut back on public food distribution programmes when they are needed the most?
It seems the government is doing an about-turn from the austerity stance taken at the start of the fiscal year.
The latest hike of gas prices undoubtedly spells trouble for industries as they will try to shift the burden onto consumers by raising product prices, which will boomerang onto them by eating away at their competitiveness in international markets.
