CPI rises slightly on growing supply

CPI rises slightly on growing supply

The country's consumer price index (CPI) in May inched up 0.2 per cent against last month amid rising supply and low demand, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO).

Compared with the first five months last year, the index rose 4.72 per cent.

Director of the GSO's Price Statistics Department Nguyen Duc Thang said that CPI had not risen much in May for the past three years as prices of necessities remained stable and the food supply in the world market was abundant, while domestic demand was not high.

During 2006-11, however, CPI often rose between 0.6 and 3.91 per cent in May, Thang said.

The price of food, which accounts for a large proportion of the 11-good basket used to calculate the country's CPI, declined 0.51 per cent as the Mekong Delta region saw a bumper harvest and Vietnamese rice exports declined due to the increasing supply from Thailand.

According to the GSO, 10 of the 11 consumer goods and services in the CPI basket registered price hikes during the month, ranging from 0.01 to 0.43 per cent.

The highest rise, recorded in the housing and construction materials group, followed the central bank's recent launch of a preferential credit package for the property market.

The educational group experienced the lowest rise, an inconsequential 0.01 per cent, followed by medicine and health care services with an increase of only 0.06 per cent.

Although summer is starting, the price increase of beverages was lower than the country's average CPI rise, only 0.13 per cent.

In May, domestic gold prices continued to drop by 0.85 per cent against the previous month, in line with the overall world downward trend, while the US dollar also experienced a slight decrease of 0.04 per cent.

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