Bangladesh's overall inflation in May this year eased slightly to 9.15 percent from 9.93 percent, but non-food items remained a matter of headache for the government, an official said Wednesday.
The Bureau of Statistics (BBS) official told Xinhua that the country's overall inflation rate, which slowed to 10.10 percent in March, maintained its sliding motion in the last month as food items marked sharp fall.
The country's food inflation fell to 7.46 percent in May, compared to 8.12 percent in April, he said, adding the country's food inflation was recorded at 13.16 percent in May last year.
According to the official, the country's point-to-point inflation reached 10.20 percent in May last year while in the same month the non-food figure was 4.78 percent. "Inflation in non-food items eased slightly to clock a 12.72 percent rise in May this year from 13.77 percent in April," said the official who preferred to be unnamed.
He said fall in food inflation has come as a big relief for the government which is struggling to contain inflation.
The official said that the price hike in food items, particularly staple rice, is a key concern for the government as about 31.5 percent of people live on less than two U.S. dollars a day and spend a large part of their earnings on food.
The country's overall rate of inflation came down to single digit as food inflation rate maintained the sliding trend against the backdrop of bumper domestic crop which contributed a lot to cooling down food prices, he added.
Meanwhile, he said the central bank had been maintaining a restrained monetary policy to rein in inflation particularly in non-food sector which has become a reason of headache for the government's relevant agencies.
Prices of non-food commodities such as garments, medical services, transport, furniture and those of household and laundry increased to some extent, causing the spike in inflation in non- food sector, he mentioned.
The average inflation rate in the South Asian nation of over 150 million people during the 12 months of the last 2010-11 fiscal year (July 2010-June 2011) reached 8.80 percent.
In the budget for the current fiscal year 2011-12, the Bangladeshi government assumed that the average annual inflation will be 7.5 percent./.