Vietnam Reports CPI Up 5.2 per cent in First Half 2007

The consumer price index (CPI) is estimated to have risen by 0.85 per cent in June, bringing the inflation rate in the first six months to 5.2 per cent, the government’s General Statistics Office (GSO) reported Monday.

 

Prices of food and foodstuff, which account for 42.8 per cent of the basket of commodities used for CPI calculation, accelerated by 6.8 per cent since the beginning of this year. This is the second fastest price growth group, behind the housing and construction material group, which registered the highest CPI rise of 8.24 per cent.

 

Meanwhile, medical and healthcare products witnessed the lowest CPI rise in January-June, at 2.87 per cent.

 

In June alone, the housing and construction material also saw the highest price hike at 1.33 per cent on month, followed by culture, sport and entertainment at 1.25 per cent and food and foodstuff at 1.02 per cent.

 

Costs of transport and communication means rose 0.91 per cent from May, of which postal services and telecommunication price fell 1.15 per cent.

 

Following are the details of each group:

 

	Index in June 2007 compared with ( per cent)
	Base year 2005	Jun 2006	Dec 2006	May 2007
Consumer price index	113.80	107.80	105.20	100.85
Food and foodstuff	117.01	109.86	106.80	101.02
Of which: -Food	122.04	114.86	105.56	100.43
-Foodstuff	114.71	108.09	107.32	101.44
Beverage and cigarette	111.90	105.95	103.67	100.16
Garment, footwear, hat	110.36	106.22	103.52	100.48
Housing and construction materials	117.46	110.95	108.24	101.33
Household appliances and goods	111.08	106.24	103.19	100.38
Medical products and health care	108.70	104.64	102.87	100.81
Means of transport and communication	111.46	103.81	103.26	100.91
Of which: Postal services and Telecommunication	94.39	98.53	98.59	98.85
Education	106.77	103.96	100.86	100.17
Culture, sport and entertainment	106.97	104.19	102.72	101.25
Other consumer goods and services	113.37	107.85	104.30	100.49
Gold price index	151.50	102.81	105.01	98.03
USD price index	101.58	100.53	100.10	100.26

 

The CPI went up 0.97 per cent in urban areas and 0.72 per cent in rural areas this month.

 

The Southeast region saw the highest increase of consumer price with the rise of 1.2 per cent on month, followed by the Mekong Delta region with 0.92 per cent, while the Northwest region recorded the slowest rise of 0.49 per cent.

 

Among provinces and cities, Ho Chi Minh City witnessed the highest CPI growth of 1.27 per cent, followed by Hue 0.92 per cent.

 

The gold price is estimated to have fallen 1.97 per cent in June, but it still rose by 5.01 per cent from last year’s and by 2.81 per cent one year ago.

 

The prices of US dollar rose 0.26 per cent against the Vietnamese dong from last month, 0.1 per cent from last December and 0.53 from last June.

 

Earlier this year, the Government targeted curbing inflation under 7 per cent for the whole year, lower than the expected 8.5 per cent economic growth.

 

However, the State Bank of Vietnam governor Le Duc Thuy recently forecast that the CPI would rise 7-7.5 per cent in 2007, outstripping the government estimation.