November's Consumer Prices Rise 0.2 per cent On-Month

November's Consumer Prices Rise 0.2 per cent On-Month

Vietnam's consumer price index (CPI) is estimated to rise by a mere 0.2 per cent in November against October, 8.8 per cent against the end of 2003, and 9.9 per cent over the same period last year, as prices of some major goods including transport-postal services and housing-construction materials have increased sharply.

The price of transport-postal services had the strongest rise of 1.2 per cent against October after the government decided to hike retail price of petroleum products by 7 per cent from early this month when the world crude price reached US$55 per barrel.

Property-construction materials followed with an increase of 0.5 per cent due to higher price of gold, which is often used for real estate transaction, while the price of garments-footwear rose by 0.2 per cent due to higher demand before winter season.

Meanwhile, the price of food and foodstuff, which account for 47 per cent of the basket of commodities used in calculating CPI, and beverages-cigarettes and culture-sports-entertainment services remained unchanged from October.

Regarding November’s gold price, the precious metal increased sharply by 3.2 per cent against the previous month. The November gold price constitutes a rise of 11.9 per cent on-year. The Vietnamese dong closed unchanged against the US dollar in November (+0.3 per cent in the January-November period and +0.8 per cent in the year ending November 2004).

• L.D