<div><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><b>The general point to point inflation rate in February increased slightly as it reached to 8.78 percentage up from 8.57 percentage points in January mainly because of the slight rise in food inflation.</b></span><br></div><div><br></div><div>The general point to point inflation rate in December last was 8.71percentage points, according to the monthly Consumer Price Index (CPI) of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).</div><div><br></div><div>The point to point food inflation increased to 8.13 percentage points in February up from 7.76 percentage points in January.</div><div><br></div><div>On the other hand, the point to point non-food inflation declined slightly to 9.82 percentage points in February down from 9.84 percentage points in January.</div><div><br></div><div>Talking to the reporters after the day's ECNEC meeting, State Minister for Planning Dr Shamsul Alam said the inflation rate has been falling in the country since September last until January while the wage rate is also increasing.</div><div><br></div><div>He said although the inflation rate witnessed slight increase last month, but it is not uncomfortable.</div><div><br></div><div>Dr Alam said that currently the BBS is calculating CPI index based on the average of 412 commodities, but such number would be increased to 700.</div><div><br></div><div>Citing that the price of vegetables is now on the downtrend, he hoped that the prices of commodities would come down also.</div><div><br></div><div>Considering the ensuing Holy Month of Ramadan, the State Minister said there would be an additional demand among the consumers. "But, there has been sufficient import of essentials for which I believe the prices of commodities will remain in a tolerable state."</div><div><br></div><div>The BBS data showed that the national wage index rate in February was 7.11 percent up from 7.06 percent in January. According to BSS reports</div><div><br></div><div>bnbd24/fas</div>