August CPI rises 0.88% from July on higher housing, fuel, rice prices

Vietnam’s consumer price index (CPI) in August rose 0.88% from July due to higher prices of fuel and rice as well as higher house rents in line with stronger demand, says the General Statistics Office (GSO).

The CPI was up 2.02% over December 2022 and 2.96% over August 2022. The 2.96% record is still below the target of 4% for this year.

Core inflation rose 0.32% from a month ago and 4.02% from a year ago.

In August, the CPI of two groups of goods and services exceeded the 0.88% remark, namely transportation at 3.85% and education at 0.96%.

The changes in the transportation group were attributed to higher prices of fuel and public transportation, while that of education were due to higher textbook prices as fourth (primary school), eighth (secondary school), and 11th grade (high school) students have to new textbooks per the new curriculum.

Other groups, namely housing and construction materials; food and catering services; drinks and tobacco; textile, footwear, hats; house appliances; culture, entertainment and tourism; and medicine and healthcare services, posted growths of between 0.85% and 0.03%. Notably, the telecom sector recorded a negative 0.17%, due to lower prices of mobile phone and landline subscriptions.

In January-August, core inflation went up 4.57% year-on-year, higher than the average CPI of 3.1%, the GSO said.

Retail, service revenues

The CPI’s slow pace happened as the country underperformed in export-import activities and retail and service revenues saw weak growth.

In August, total retail and service revenues rose 7.6% year-on-year to VND515.4 trillion ($21.32 billion).

In January-August, the figure went up 10% year-on-year to VND4,044 trillion ($167.29 billion), slower than 19.2% in the same period of 2022. This was still better than negative 3.5% and 1.1% revenue growth in the same periods of 2021 and 2020, respectively.

The retail sector accounted for the biggest portion of revenues at VND3,176 trillion ($131.29 billion), up 8.7% year-on-year; followed by accommodation and catering services at VND436.3 trillion ($18.04 billion), up 15.6%; tourism at VND22.4 trillion ($926 million), up 47%; and other services at VND409.7 trillion, up 12.6%.