<div align="justify">Vietnam&rsquos total retail sales of goods and services are estimated at VND527.5 trillion (US$33 billion) in the first seven months of 2008, representing a growth of 30 per cent on year, the General Statistics Office (GSO) reported on July 28.</div> <div align="justify"> </div> <div align="justify">Per capita spending in the period was VND886,000 a month on average, doubling the VND438,000 monthly spending in 2007.</div> <div align="justify"> </div> <div align="justify">The trade sector made the greatest contribution in retail sales with revenues of VND434.8 trillion, or 82.4 per cent of total, up 30.2 per cent on year.</div> <div align="justify"> </div> <div align="justify">The hotel and restaurant sectors saw a sale growth at 24.9 per cent to VND59.5 trillion, the service sector at 30 per cent to VND26 trillion, and the tourism sector posted the highest growth at 47.6 per cent to VND7.2 trillion.</div> <div align="justify"> </div> <div align="justify">The individual economic sector is the biggest seller with revenues of VND295.7 trillion, making up 56 per cent of total and representing an increase of 32.9 per cent on year.</div> <div align="justify"> </div> <div align="justify">The runners-up are the private sector with sales of VND153.5 trillion, the state-owned sector with VND59.9 trillion, the foreign-invested sector with VND12.9 trillion, and the collective sector with VND5.5 trillion. They witnessed an on-year growth of 35 per cent, 6.2 per cent, 32.1 per cent and 34.5 per cent, respectively.</div> <div align="justify"> </div> <div align="justify">The high growth of retail sales is mainly attributed to the surging prices of goods and services.</div> <div align="justify"> </div> <div align="justify">The country&rsquos consumer price index (CPI) is estimated to rise 19.78 per cent in July from the beginning of this year. (GSO Jul 2008)</div>
Vietnamese
