Inflation Unlikely to Surge in April

According to Mr Vo Van Quyen, the consumer price index (CPI) has dropped for seven consecutive months since August 2011, and made the average CPI in the first quarter become lowest for 8 years recently. Without large price shocks, or impact of electricity price inflator, inflation in April and in the following months will not soar.

As reported by the Ministry of Industry and Trade, food prices slightly decreased 0.41 percent; housing prices and construction materials prices increased 2.47 percent; other prices in the basket of commodities have a improvement from 0.07 to 0.86 percent; especially post and communication products continuously dropped 0.16 percent.

 

Mr Vo Van Quyen also noted that the increase in gasoline prices in March has a slower impact than that in the previous adjustment; even though it does not create a shock for the market, but still affects the CPI in April. The situation that some products take advantage of gasoline price rise to increase price almost does not happen. This is a good sign of the market.

 

Referring to Mr Vo Van Quyen's forecast, some items prices may rise in the next months, for example rice price in Cuu Long River Delta increases about VND 100 to 200 per kilogram. Furthermore, exchange rate is stable over time, but its increase will partly influence imported products in domestic market.

 

Recently, gasoline items prices have declined from VND 50,000 to 70,000 per 12kg and will continue to reduce in the world market because of the end of winter in Europe. Due to the speculations of using animal feed lean ingredients in animal food stuff for pork, this product price is decreasing.

 

Mr Vo Van Quyen also announced: "Inflation will hardly surge because the real demand of the market is so weak, in addition with difficulties of consumption of producers". Specifically, according to the report of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, CPI of some items have strongly reduced, to 15 percent like steel, cement. Because of reduction in demand, the amount of inventories remains quite high compared to that in the same period of last year. Till the first of March, the amount of inventories of fertilizer and nitrogen compounds, steel and iron, beer and malt, garment and textile has increased 62.7 percent, 59.1 percent, 48 percent and 6.6 percent respectively.

 

In the following time, the Ministry of Industry and Trade will coordinate closely with ministries, branches and localities to closely monitor supply and demand of goods, prices, domestic market, especially for essential commodities, and at the same time, enhance testing, inspection, monitoring the implementation of price regulations on registration and declaration, and the observance of the provisions of the law on price control. Together with that, the Ministry continues to strengthen the fight against smuggling, faked goods and poor quality goods, and strictly applies penalties for those violations.

 

The propaganda activities are also strongly concerned by Ministry of Industry and Trade for the purpose of accurately informing market progress to consumers, creating consensus and active participation between people and authorities in controlling prices, prohibits false information causing confusion and vulnerable mental among people.

 

In terms of difficulties of export market, domestic consumption continues to be a factor stimulating development of domestic production, so in the following time, the Ministry will continue to implement strong programme to promote domestic trade, focus on organizing sales to rural areas and industrial parks; developing distribution networks, expanding retail systems and services, particularly in rural areas; implementing activities of the "Vietnamese give priority to use Vietnamese products" programme towards domestic consumers to use Vietnamese products, in order to stimulate consumption and promote domestic production and restrict trade deficit...