Vietnam's CPI Rises Sharply in February on New Year's High Purchasing

Vietnam’s consumer price index (CPI) in February is estimated to rise by as much as 2.17 per cent from January as demand for goods and services is soaring amid the Lunar New Year holidays.

 

CPI, knows as the inflation rate, increased by 3.24 per cent from the end of 2006 and by 6.5 per cent from last February, reported the General Statistics Office (GSO).

 

In February, the price of food and foodstuff group, which accounts for 42.8 per cent of the basket of commodities used in calculating the CPI, registered the highest increase by 3.45 per cent on month, followed by the price of beverage and cigarette group by 2.25 per cent.

 

The cost of housing and construction materials expanded 1.86 per cent in February, increasing 5 per cent since the beginning of this year. This is also the fastest-rising group with the price inflating by 9.53 per cent from last February.

 

The transport and communication services group saw the slowest rise by 0.7 per cent in the month, of which the postal and telecoms declined 0.04 per cent on month.

 

The price of gold in February is estimated to rise 2.08 per cent on-month and 17.09 per cent on year.

 

The US dollar price, meanwhile, fell 0.21 per cent against January and 0.33 per cent against last December but rose 0.6 per cent from last February.

 

Following are the details of each group:

 

	Index in February 2007 compared with ( per cent)
	Base year 2005	February 2006	December 2006	January 2007
Consumer price index	111.68	106.50	103.24	102.17
Food and foodstuff	114.62	107.57	104.62	103.45
Of which: -Food	120.94	114.96	104.61	102.76
-Foodstuff	111.95	104.98	104.73	103.83
Beverage and cigarette	112.48	106.76	104.21	102.52
Garment, footwear, hat	109.06	106.32	102.30	101.28
Housing and construction materials	113.94	109.53	105.00	101.86
Household appliances and goods	109.32	106.67	101.56	101.06
Medical products and health care	106.32	103.92	100.62	100.40
Means of transport and communication	108.07	103.15	100.12	100.07
Of which: Postal services and Telecommunication	95.66	97.02	99.92	99.96
Education	106.27	103.81	100.39	100.20
Culture, sport and entertainment	106.46	103.70	102.23	102.11
Other consumer goods and services	112.14	107.20	103.17	102.26
Gold price index	145.61	117.09	100.93	102.08
USD price index	101.15	100.60	99.67	99.79

 

Vietnam’s CPI rose by 6.6 per cent in 2006, lower than the increase by 8.4 per cent in 2005 and 9.5 per cent in 2004. (GSO, Vietnam Economic Times, Labour)