Average goods price hike in Bangladesh

Staff Correspondent
The average essential goods price increase in the 2007–08 financial year was 45.50 per cent while such an increase in July was 5.41 per cent. The prices of essential goods in the past week on an average increase stood at 3.09 per cent, said a release of the Consumers Association of Bangladesh on Friday. The individual price increase in the 2007–08 financial year was 59.82 per cent for rice, 52.62 per cent for coarse flour, 33.30 per cent for lentil, 51.42 per cent for oil, 32.33 per cent for egg, 25.66 per cent for soap and 30.34 per cent for milk product, the release said. In July, the individual average price increase was 8.86 per cent for rice, 4.23 per cent for lentil, 3.39 per cent for edible oil, 12.57 per cent for egg and 26.96 per cent for vegetables, the release said. The government also did not take any initiatives to contain exorbitant cost of education, medical treatment, communications and bus fare which caused a decline in the living standards of the poor and the middle-income group, said the association at a discussion in its office in Dhaka on Friday. The discussion was, among others, attended by the CAB programme coordinator Kazi Fazlul Haque, programme officer Emdad Hossain and consumers affairs experts from UNIDO Zahedur Rahman. The discussion was chaired by the CAB president, Borhan Ahmed, also the executive editor of Janakhantha.