DHAKA: The number of people living below the poverty line in Bangladesh has risen sharply in the last few years because of spiralling food prices, a leading think-tank has said.

A study by the Dhaka-based Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) found that 48.5 per cent of people in Bangladesh do not have enough money to buy basic food such as rice, compared to 40 per cent in 2005.

CPD executive director Mustafizur Rahman said he blamed the increase on a steep rise in food prices, particularly rice.

“Some 40 per cent of our people lived below the poverty line when the last household income survey was conducted by the government in 2005. But the number has gone up to 48.5 per cent due to massive increase in food prices,” he said.

Mr Rahman said that meant an extra 12.2 million people out of the country’s 144 million had fallen below the poverty line since the last study.

The figure was calculated by comparing household incomes to the cost of a basket of food totalling 2,122 calories, enough to feed one adult for a day.

Although yet to comment on the latest study, the government has acknowledged that the price of rice has doubled since January 2007 because of shortages as a result of last summer’s floods and a devastating cyclone in November.

The price of rice is a key issue in Bangladesh, where households are estimated to spend nearly 70 per cent of their income on food.

In April, the country’s food and disaster management minister said the disasters and global food price hikes have created a “hidden hunger” in the country. Inflation has been more than 10 per cent since July last year.

Bangladesh is one of the world’s poorest nations but it witnessed a sharp fall in poverty in the first half of the decade due to impressive economic growth in the past 15 years.

The economy has grown by more than five per cent annually since the early 1990s and six per cent in the last four years.-—AFP